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EVEN the low expectations that preceded the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29), which concluded in the early hours of Sunday, turned out to have been too high.
After the gavel came down in Baku on a deal proposing $300 billion in financial assistance by 2035 to developing nations struggling to decarbonise and cope in other ways with the swiftly mounting consequences of climate change, Indian representative Chandni Raina justifiably decried a “stage-managed” process that had produced “nothing more than an optical illusion”.
A week earlier, Pakistan’s former climate change minister Sherry Rehman had declared: “We’re here for life and death reasons”, demanding “internationally determined contributions” from the biggest historical contributors to global heating, and pointing out the pitfalls of leaving too much to the private sector.
Inevitably, given the timing of the conference, the malevolent spectre of Donald Trump hung over the proceedings. Even at the best of times, the US has hardly stood out as a leader in the combat against devastating climate change, with the majority of its legislators — all too many of them addicted to contributions from fossil fuel firms and lobbyists — turning pale at the prospect of a Green New Deal. But Trump and some of his closest associates are seemingly determined to pump up the volume of oil and gas extraction because all the hullabaloo about climate change is, after all, no more than a hoax.
He may well agree with Argentina’s Javier Milei, a kindred spirit from the loony right who claims to have been hailed by Trump as his “favourite president” — and who withdrew his nation’s delegation from Baku after the first three days — that the climate crisis is just a “socialist lie”.
Can humanity recover from the bungle in Baku?
What is a little more perturbing is that Azerbaijan’s leadership appears to be on more or less the same page, with President Ilham Aliyev hailing oil and gas as a “gift from God”, with no acknowledgement of the various other natural wonders that are at risk because humans insist on burning fossil fuels for energy. Besides, aren’t alternative sources of energy such as sunshine and wind equally gifts from the same source?
There’s no dearth of sunlight in Azerbaijan, but 90 per cent of its foreign income comes from fossil fuel exports — which include nearly 40pc of Israel’s oil imports, currently facilitating a genocide. The quid pro quo is weapons supplies from Israel, which may well have facilitated the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. It certainly might be worthwhile conducting such conferences in oil- and gas-producing nations genuinely interested in reducing their reliance on fossil fuels. But this year’s host appeared to be even less interested in investigating that path than last year’s previous petrostate venue.
COP28 in Dubai was presided over by the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and swarmed with oil and gas lobbyists. The conference formally acknowledged for the first time the link between fossil fuels and climate change, something that was evident decades earlier. And it did so in the face of staunch resistance from Saudi Arabia, where the crown prince’s now diminished Vision 2030 excludes any inclination towards compensating the victims of its incredibly lucrative oil boom. By all accounts, the Saudis were again desperate to achieve the same outcome at Baku. Their ploy flopped again. But does it matter?
The previous $100bn-a-year finance deal did not add up until well after its 2020 deadline. Its tripling (or doubling, if inflation is taken into account) is likely to meet the same fate. The 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold might be breached as soon as this year, amid an increase in emissions notwithstanding previous COPs, and a near-consensus that 2024 will turn out to be the hottest year on record. Climate scientists are constantly being flabbergasted by what Harold Macmillan might have designated as “events, dear boy, events”. Who knows where the world might be in 2035, by when the $300bn level is supposed to be reached. That’s only a fraction of the notionally required resources, and it may even be too late to make much of a difference with the trillions that no one seriously expects to be doled out.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the UN’s efforts to tackle the climate emergency have been ineffective. But anyone who suggests that a failing process should be abandoned must present a viable alternative. That’s not easy, short of straying into fantasy world. It’s a small mercy that COP30 will take place in Brazil, whose present government is dedicated to thwarting climate change. Perhaps putting the remarkably astute Greta Thunberg and fellow young activists from around the world in charge of working out the way forward might be the ideal option. But I must be dreaming.
Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2024
