COP29 opens this Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan. The challenge of this conference is to determine how industrialized countries can support the more vulnerable countries of the South in their ecological transition. But concretely, what can we expect from yet another world climate conference?
François Gemenne, member of the intergovernmental group of experts on climate change, the IPCC, does not particularly expect the failure of this COP29: “It is certain that we clearly see that the problem at the financial level is that the governments’ pockets are empty. We can clearly see that the political problem is that, election after election, there is not really a clear demand expressed on the part of the electorate for ambitious climate policies. This does not necessarily mean that the fight against climate change will be a failure. It simply means that you have to be creative, especially financially.“, explains the expert.
The one who is also director of the HUGO observatory at ULiège believes that the private sector should be more involved in the negotiations: “I don’t see why the big fossil fuel companies couldn’t contribute to the fund for losses and damages, for example. And I actually think today that it is companies more than governments that are today spearheading the transition. And that also implies that we can question the negotiation model. We’re going to have to deal with climate change until the end of the century at least and so we need these annual meetings.“, he declared live on RTL info 7 p.m.
I would not want to be in the place of the American delegates who will have to represent their country at this COP29
What worries François Gemenne is the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. The return of this assumed climate skeptic is not “clearly not“bodes well for this COP29 and future climate considerations:”I would not want to find myself in the place of the American delegates who will have to represent their country at this COP29 because we know that all the commitments they may make risk becoming obsolete in two months when Mr. Trump will have been sworn in as 47th President of the United States“, he replies.
“Very clearly, it does not bode well to have the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases wanting to disengage from international cooperation, especially since if the United States disengages, there is obviously a risk of ‘to encourage other countries to disengage and who would say ‘basically if the United States doesn’t go, why should I go?’“, analyzes François Gemenne who sees it”very, very bad news for the climate and for international cooperation“.
cop29 azerbaijan baku climate ipec françois gemenne
