The negotiators had only one thing in mind: finding a number of billions that would prevent this COP29 from ending in failure. The conference president warned that the deal would be fair if each delegation left Baku with the same dissatisfaction of paying too much or receiving too little. This seems to be the case, with 1.3 trillion dollars mobilized by the richest countries by 2035, including 300 billion per year specifically allocated to developing countries. Too much for payers who report their budget and debt problems, ridiculously little for those who suffer from the effects of climate change without having contributed to it.
However, I think the problem lies at another level. I'm surprised that so few people talk about it. Who exactly will pay, to whom, and why?
The developed countries, which have polluted the longest, are not necessarily the richest today. With deficit budgets, riddled with abysmal debts, Europe is not in a position to show much generosity. The United States, despite its chronic deficit, remains the leading world power, but the arrival of Trump will certainly not loosen the climate purse strings. That leaves Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand: nothing to brag about. While many other countries should be associated with this momentum in favor of the poorest.
The “who pays” and “who receives” was scottomized by the size of the bill which attracted all eyes. They have certainly been emitting greenhouse gases for less time, but today they are among the main polluters on the planet: China, India, Brazil and so on. And the countries producing fossil fuels? Even if it is also the rest of the world that uses their products, it is still they who supply them, and build megacities with the revenue. So why wouldn't all these countries also pay? They have become the richest, even if they hide behind an average salary that allows them to rank in the list of developing countries. This is how some of them, not content with simply avoiding paying, try to place themselves on the list of those who must be compensated!
Second question, what do we pay for?
Of course there is a responsibility of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases towards the rest of the world, and it is clear that the countries which are suffering the most today must be helped. We must build dikes, raise islands, repair infrastructure destroyed by hurricanes, compensate for crops destroyed by droughts or floods. It is not up to the victims to pay, and the results of COP29 are there to remind us of this. Fortunately. Without the much-maligned UN conference process, we wouldn't even be here.
But when it comes to building renewable energy infrastructures, much more profitable than those that run on fossil fuels, to installing more efficient processes using cleantech, to insulating buildings… in short, to moving from world that wastes fossil fuels to one that saves renewables, we are in a different logic: that of an investment rather than compensation. Here, the billions cannot come from the same pocket, since an investment is by definition lucrative, while a donation, reparation or compensation is not directly lucrative.
This reflection also applies to Switzerland, where the recent adoption of the climate law and the revision of the CO law₂ is a step in the right direction, although insufficient. Without a clear commitment to direct funding towards the energy transition, these laws risk remaining a dead letter. Switzerland's decline in the international ranking of climate efforts, revealed during COP29, is striking proof: legislating is not enough, we must also find the means to act.
If all this is not better defined, we will continue to debate in sterile confusion. And if we have Azeri in Baku, we will start crying next year at the COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
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