COP29 | Azerbaijan defends oil, G20 keeps a low profile

(Baku) The host of the annual UN climate conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, defended on Tuesday the right of countries to exploit their oil, opening a summit of world leaders marked by the absence of the greatest powers.

The leaders of African and Pacific countries, well represented at COP29, are pleading on Tuesday for a historic financial agreement on aid from rich countries, but most of the G20 heads of state are absent at the start of one of the negotiations most difficult climate conditions since the Paris Agreement in 2015.

One of the few present was British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced from Baku the new, very ambitious target for reducing his country’s greenhouse gas emissions: -81% by 2035, compared to 1990. The EU, for its part, plans to target -90% by 2040.

“We are here to show leadership” from London in climate diplomacy, said Keir Starmer, a rare leader to have organized a press conference.

Like many diplomats here, he did not respond specifically to a question about the consequences of Donald Trump coming to power in the United States. But the prospect of American withdrawal from the keystone agreement on climate action is on everyone’s minds.

“It’s not an ideal situation. […] But in 30 years of COP, this is not the first time that we have faced obstacles” and “everything is still entirely possible”, the Canadian Minister of the Environment told AFP on Tuesday, Steven Guilbeault, whose Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is also absent.

Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Lula, Joe Biden or Narendra Modi did not come either.

Increase annual aid tenfold?

The main standoff of this COP: negotiating a new figure for annual financial aid for developing countries, to help them invest in renewable energies and strengthen economies in the face of future droughts and floods.

The G20 rejects 77% of humanity’s greenhouse gases, according to the UN.

Today, only 10% of climate finance goes to the world’s poorest countries.

Developing countries cannot leave “empty-handed,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

These countries are demanding a tenfold increase or more in aid, currently around $116 billion per year (in 2022). Amounts considered unrealistic by Westerners more inclined to reduce their public spending after deficits and post-COVID-19 inflation.

The negotiations get off to a bad start. On Tuesday, a first draft agreement was outright rejected by negotiators from the southern country in a closed-door meeting.

“We cannot accept it,” Ugandan negotiator Adonia Ayebare, who chairs the G77+China group, representing more than 130 countries, told AFP.

What climate without Trump?

Around 75 leaders traveled to Azerbaijan, in a COP which attracted fewer presidents and monarchs than last year in Dubai.

Zimbabwe is suffering “one of the worst droughts in its history”, launched its president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, from the podium.

“Money flows easily finance wars, but when it comes to climate adaptation, they are scrutinized,” accused Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu.

For the second year in a row, the UN conference is taking place in a major oil and gas producing country. The COP changes region every year, and the former Soviet bloc designated Azerbaijan last year.

Its president, Ilham Aliev, assumed on Tuesday his expression “gift from God”, to designate the hydrocarbons which have made the country rich. He recalled that the European Union itself had asked him to supply more gas, after the energy crisis of 2022.

“Any natural resource, oil, gas, wind, solar, gold, silver, copper: these are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them and providing them to the markets, because the markets need them” , said Ilham Aliyev. The “fake news media” of the United States, “the world’s leading producer” of fossil fuels, “had better look in the mirror”.