World Leaders Snub COP29, Jeopardizing Climate Action

One of the most rel­e­gated United Nations cli­mate change con­fer­ences since its incep­tion in 1995 is tak­ing place in Azerbaijan’s cap­i­tal, Baku. Government rep­re­sen­ta­tives and nego­tia­tors from nearly 200 nations are con­ven­ing to dis­cuss the world’s next steps to tackle cli­mate change.

A num­ber of world lead­ers have been absent from this year’s 29^th Conference of the Parties (COP29), con­trary to stan­dard pro­to­col that calls for lead­ers to address par­tic­i­pants in the first days of the sum­mit. 

Leaders from the world’s largest economies, includ­ing United States President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, are not attend­ing.

Ursula von der Leyen, the pres­i­dent of the European Commission who has been re-elected for a sec­ond five-year term as the commission’s boss, is also absent from Baku.

“It’s symp­to­matic of the lack of polit­i­cal will to act,” said cli­mate sci­en­tist Bill Hare of Climate Analytics. ​“There’s no sense of urgency.”

In his speech on the open­ing day of COP29, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called 2024 ​“a mas­ter­class in human destruc­tion,” adding that anthro­pogenic cli­mate change is fuel­ing dis­as­ters world­wide.

“Families run­ning for their lives before the next hur­ri­cane strikes; work­ers and pil­grims col­laps­ing in insuf­fer­able heat; floods tear­ing through com­mu­ni­ties and tear­ing down infra­struc­ture; chil­dren going to bed hun­gry as droughts rav­age crops,” Guterres said. ​“All these dis­as­ters, and more, are being super­charged by human-made cli­mate change.” 

The Portuguese politi­cian and diplo­mat also noted that green­house gas emis­sions have increased world­wide since COP28 a year ago. 

The European Union’s Copernicus Observatory has also warned that 2024 is on track to becom­ing the hottest year, with the planet’s aver­age sur­face tem­per­a­ture likely exceed­ing the 1.5 ºC thresh­old limit this year.

At COP28 in Dubai last year, par­tic­i­pants reached a non-bind­ing agree­ment to elim­i­nate the use of fos­sil fuels for energy pro­duc­tion, which is con­sid­ered the lead­ing cause of man­made cli­mate change. They also agreed to for­mally estab­lish a loss and dam­age fund to assist poor and most cli­mate-vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries.

The pri­mary goal of this year’s sum­mit is to boost fund­ing for devel­op­ing coun­tries to deal with the effects of cli­mate change. 

Economists have told COP29 par­tic­i­pants that by 2030, poor nations will need to spend up to $1 tril­lion (€950 bil­lion) per annum, effec­tively mit­i­gat­ing the effects of cli­mate change. 

The annual COP sum­mits are based on the idea that the world’s most indus­tri­al­ized and wealthy nations are mainly respon­si­ble for anthro­pogenic cli­mate change and, there­fore, should be bur­dened pro­por­tion­ally in humanity’s fight to tackle the effects of global warm­ing. 

However, no uni­ver­sal rule exists to spec­ify how much each coun­try must con­tribute. While most European coun­tries have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cantly over the years, other wealthy nations, includ­ing the United States, Canada and Australia, have been crit­i­cized for not mobi­liz­ing funds pro­por­tional to the size of their economies. 

In addi­tion, the elec­tion of cli­mate skep­tic Donald Trump as the next pres­i­dent of the United States has also cast doubt on the COP29 talks.

However, U.S. cli­mate envoy John Podesta, who leads the country’s del­e­ga­tion at COP29, reas­sured the summit’s par­tic­i­pants that U.S. cli­mate action will con­tinue despite the elec­tion results. 

Meanwhile, the lead­ers of some of the most vul­ner­a­ble nations to cli­mate change, such as Papua New Guinea, have boy­cotted COP29, cit­ing the slow­ness of rich coun­tries to respond. 

Papua New Guinea, an island nation of 10 mil­lion peo­ple in the south­west­ern Pacific Ocean, is expe­ri­enc­ing extremely high tides and sea lev­els ris­ing twice as fast per year com­pared to the world aver­age. 

“Papua New Guinea is mak­ing this stand for the ben­e­fit of all small island nations,” Prime Minister Justin Tckatchenko said before the open­ing of COP29. ​“We will no longer tol­er­ate empty promises and inac­tion, while our peo­ple suf­fer the dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences of cli­mate change.”

• The Guardian
• Time
• RZN