The world must achieve carbon neutrality much faster than expected, according to new scientific estimates published Wednesday during COP29 in Baku, where leaders of rich countries, inspired by Donald Trump, are reluctant to accelerate efforts on the climate.
For scientists from the Global Carbon Project, global CO2 emissions generated by the combustion of coal, oil and gas will set another record this year, which will also probably be the hottest year on record.
And the world must aim for zero net CO2 emissions by the end of the 2030s to hope to contain global warming to 1.5°C, compared to the end of the 19th century.
That is, much earlier than 2050, the horizon currently envisaged by around a hundred countries.
In just four minutes on the podium, the Prime Minister of a small country usually discreet in this area, Albania, woke up the COP by summarizing the general atmosphere.
“Life continues with its old habits and our speeches full of good intentions on the fight against climate change change nothing,” regretted Edi Rama.
“What the hell are we doing in this assembly, if again and again, there is no common political will to unite and put words into action?” he said, expressing alarm at the number of leaders absent in Azerbaijan (the G20 being almost not represented).
One of them, French President Emmanuel Macron, was also directly targeted by his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev in a virulent speech against France’s “crimes” in New Caledonia and other territories under its sovereignty .
– Go beyond words –
The return of Donald Trump to power in the United States, which today emits 11% of global emissions, behind China (30%), complicates efforts to reverse the curve of greenhouse gas emissions this decade.
Mr. Trump plans to take his country out of the quasi-universal agreement which is starting to bear fruit, the one concluded at the Paris COP in 2015. Only Iran, Yemen and Libya are not part of it today. ‘today.
But in Baku, leaders of Western countries traumatized by inflation, public deficits and the social movements of recent years openly say they want to press the brake rather than the accelerator.
The head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, said on Wednesday that there was “no single alternative” to fossil fuels, that we must have a “realistic” vision and be wary of any “overly ideological approach”.
“We cannot rush into industrial oblivion in the name of carbon neutrality,” declared Greek conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, explaining that the “transition will not be painless”.
Even if German negotiator Jennifer Morgan assures that “this COP is moving forward”, Westerners are reluctant to pay more in times of austerity, at the very moment when countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific are asking for more money to pay for and anticipate the damage from droughts and floods expected to increase or invest in solar power and electric vehicles.
– 1.300 billion –
To convince them, the head of the UN Climate and vulnerable countries argue that too extreme a climate will cause inflation and economic damage everywhere, not just in the South.
“We are getting dangerously close to a line beyond which there will be no turning back,” said Philip Davis, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas. “The fires that devour your forests, the hurricanes that hit our homes are not distant misfortunes but shared tragedies.”
“We must seize what is perhaps our last opportunity to act,” also urged Russell Dlamini, the head of government of Eswatini.
According to a new negotiating text on Wednesday, developing countries are still asking developed states to go from 100 billion to… 1,300 billion dollars in annual aid. Other figures are circulating, considered more or less unrealistic by Westerners.
“We are not here to beg,” the Prime Minister of Grenada stressed on Wednesday. The “financial partnership” requested is in “the best interest of humanity” as a whole.
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