COP29 opens in a geopolitical climate weighed down by the election of Trump and the economic situation

It was risky, it is becoming perilous. The 29^e world climate conference (COP29), organized from November 11 to 22 in Baku (Azerbaijan), already had to overcome numerous difficulties: a dramatic geopolitical context with the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon; a gloomy economic situation, while negotiators must address the subject of financial aid for developing countries; a host country, invisible on the scene of climate diplomacy and appearing among the main exporters of fossil fuels, the primary cause of warming… So many obstacles to climate action, despite the disasters which strike all regions of the world, including very recently Spain, where floods caused more than 220 dead, according to the latest reports.

On November 6, the COP was hit by a new major obstacle: the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The climate skeptic Republican promised to once again withdraw the country from the Paris climate agreement, as he had already done in 2017 – the United States had reinstated it, in 2021, under Joe Biden. He plans to slow down the energy transition and massively revive the production of fossil fuels. Enough to definitively bury the objective of limiting warming to + 1.5°C, while the United States is the first historical polluter and second emitter of greenhouse gases.

The billionaire will not be invested until January 2025, so it is still the Biden administration which will lead the American negotiations in Baku. Despite everything, the shock wave of the election risks slowing down the ambition of other countries. “From now on, Baku will be a success if everyone stays together to pursue climate action and if there is a message from the COP which reiterates adherence to the Paris agreement”estimates Laurence Tubiana, the architect of the international treaty, sealed in 2015.

Multilateral mobilization for the climate is however not guaranteed, while the Azerbaijani conference, a financial COP, is seen as secondary, caught between the COP28 in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), during which the States committed for the first time to a transition away from fossil fuels, and the COP30 in Belem (Brazil), in November 2025, which will be crucial, because it will constitute a credibility test for the ten years of the agreement from Paris.

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