COP29, organized in a country that is the cradle of oil a year after the COP in Dubai, opened on Monday with vibrant calls for international cooperation. Everyone expects that next year Donald Trump's United States will become the only country to twice exit the flagship climate agreement adopted in Paris in 2015.
The emissary of Democratic President Joe Biden, John Podesta, may have assured Monday that states, cities or American companies would continue to act to compensate for the expected federal decline, the early exit of the world's second largest polluter weakens the words of its negotiators, and by extension the front of developed countries supposed to commit to giving more money to developing countries.
“This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner and safer planet,” argued John Podesta. “The fight goes beyond an election or a country’s electoral cycle.”
The Europeans have certainly promised to persevere. But there is no rush in Baku.
Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and the president of the European Commission will be absent from the summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. The EU will notably be represented by the Hungarian Viktor Orban, who holds the rotating presidency of the Council, Andrzej Duda (Poland), Pedro Sanchez (Spain) and Giorgia Meloni (Italy).
Only a few G20 countries will be represented by a head of state or government, including the United Kingdom with its Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer, expected to make a new commitment to reduce greenhouse gases.
“This government believes that climate security is a matter of national security,” chanted its minister Ed Miliband on social networks.
– Toughest negotiations since 2015 –
Some 50,000 participants are expected over the two weeks of COP29, in the Olympic stadium in Baku, on the shores of the Caspian, a sea in which Azerbaijan plans a strong expansion of its natural gas production.
At the end of a sluggish first day on Monday, the nearly 200 countries gathered ended up adopting a first decision late in the evening: the first major UN rules, supposed to establish a reliable market for carbon credits, until here without international regulation and subject to abuse, fraud and “greenwashing”.
A “breakthrough”, according to the Azerbaijani presidency, which wanted success from day one. But NGOs denounced a forceful move and a lack of transparency.
Developing countries, with China and India, also fought behind the scenes over the agenda, a standoff very symbolic of the tensions between North and South, which will be the theme of this entire COP.
Because it is money that will occupy the delegates night and day until November 22.
Climate aid is used to build solar power plants, improve irrigation, build dikes or help farmers deal with droughts.
Today at 116 billion dollars per year (in 2022), this financing must be increased more than tenfold in the coming years, according to the poor countries. Amounts that Western countries consider unrealistic for their public finances, during a period of austerity in Europe.
“These will not be easy negotiations, perhaps even the most difficult since Paris,” commented German negotiator Jennifer Morgan.
Leaders of poor countries hit this year by climate disasters, particularly in Africa and the Asia-Pacific, will parade in large numbers at the podium for two days.
Among them, the interim leader of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus and Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, the linchpin of projects to reform global finance in the service of the climate.
The real battle to extract a financial commitment from developed countries will continue behind the scenes.
