Martin Franklin assesses the outcome of this year’s environmental summit in Baku.

Almost half the world lives in climate vulnerable hotspots, where people are fifteen times more likely to die from climate impacts. Evidence of climate breakdown is increasingly apparent as extreme weather events intensify and multiply.  So, are the COPs (Conference of the Parties) charged with addressing the situation, responding adequately and whose voices are being heard?

Like last year’s COP hosts, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan is a petrostate. Oil and gas accounts for over 90% of its export revenue and it plans to increase production threefold over the next decade.  Adding to its poor human rights record, dissenting voices were suppressed ahead of the conference to avoid poor publicity. 

Azerbaijan used COP29 as an opportunity to promote its economic interests.  Its deputy energy minister and chief executive of Cop29, was caught on film agreeing to facilitate oil deals before negotiations began and Azerbaijan’s President had recently asserted the right to continue investments and production of hydrocarbons which were a “gift from God.”  The Conference president was an ex-Vice President of the country’s national oil company, making it the second time in a row that a COP president had links to the oil industry.

At least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists attended, outnumbering the delegates from the ten most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033), illustrating how commercial interests dwarfed those of poor counties on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Overshadowing everything was Trump’s re-election as US president. During his campaign Trump emphasised his climate scepticism, promising to roll back on climate measures and regulations and “drill, baby, drill”.   He has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, as he did in his last term in office. 

COPs involve negotiations on a bewildering and complex mix of technical environmental and economic issues.  COP29 was ‘the finance COP’; its central focus was to set the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. Put simply, it sought to agree how much money rich countries would stump up to help poor countries develop low-carbon economies, adapt to extreme weather impacts and limit global temperatures to within 1.5C (an increasingly unachievable target). An estimated $1.3tn (£1tn) a year is needed to achieve this. 

Agreement was delayed as some negotiators sought to fudge and minimise the final figure resulting in a group of nations most vulnerable to climate heating walking out in protest. Finally, it was agreed that $300bn would come directly from developed countries and public finance institutions, such as the World Bank. The remaining $1tn is to come from private investment.  Such funding is likely to be subject to delay and complexity resulting in suboptimal delivery.  

Climate justice activists argued that a ‘no deal’ would have been better than that finally agreed, opening the possibility for continuing negotiations next year in Brazil.  Past funding agreements have been inadequate, and the $300 billion per year is set to reach that figure only by 2030.  Delivery mechanisms are unclear and when inflation is considered there is little increase from the previously agreed sum. Rather than interest- bearing loans and speculative deals, justice campaigners argue that core grant funding is needed to remedy climate injustice, provide a global green new deal, a just transition and address the carbon debt owed to the global south.

The COP29 deal will not be a transfer of resources from rich to poor; it will instead perpetuate existing global inequalities. Loans will add to the crippling debts that many global south countries already suffer, and resources will not be distributed where they are needed the most.  Private investors seek profits and many climate-vulnerable areas will not offer returns. Private investment backed climate measures have predominantly focused on middle income countries while the ten most affected by climate change between 2000 and 2019 received less than 2% of total climate finance. 

There are concerns that powerful developed countries are working to dismantle key provisions of the Paris Agreement to avoid their responsibilities and obligations for climate heating. The result would be further entrenchment of ‘climate apartheid.’  Saudi Arabia’s attempt to reverse a commitment to “transition away from fossil fuels” reinforce such concerns.  Recent COPs have seen increasingly overt attempt to undermine decarbonisation and frustrated environmentalists argue that UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose.”

So, what are the blocks to the UN’s effort to achieve climate justice and control of the world’s temperature?  

One factor is bad faith amongst elites in the global north who see climate justice as a threat to their interests (nakedly displayed in relation to fossil fuels). Allied to this is the enduring neoliberal ideology that shapes the policies and mechanisms of institutions like the UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization.  From this perspective, climate policies can only be conceived in the frame of economic growth via markets and financialisaton.  Grants and directly redistributive strategies advocated by climate justice groups are avoided wherever possible in favour of loans and investment opportunities that offer profits.  

The upbeat assessment of COP29 from the UN defined the positive outcomes from the Conference as progress on the development of carbon markets, creating transparency and ensuring standards (presumably to reduce scams). Carbon credits are criticised for providing a free pass to countries and businesses to continue polluting and have failed to reduce emissions. Maybe reforms could make them work in the longer term but as with technofixes like carbon capture and storage, carbon credits are promoted as a solution before being proven to work effectively.  Such approaches minimise restrictions on business as usual and reflect the influence of industrial lobbying. 

Like previous UN conferences, COP29 has disappointed countries from the global south and seen as a greenwashing exercise for Azerbaijan. Greenhouse gas emissions continue rising and the planet is heading towards 1.5C of heating in little more than a century, and we already see extreme weather taking its toll on people’s lives, livelihoods and nature.  Clearly our international political and economic institutions are failing to address the climate crisis.

COPs have come to resemble a game of musical chairs on the deck of a sinking ship but they offer the only forum with the potential to address the global threats we face. There are hopes that next year’s COP in Brazil will offer better prospects.  If so, any progress will require maximum pressure on our national and global leaderships from civil society to counter those that currently dominate proceedings.

Martin Franklin is a member of the Islington Environment Forum steering group. With thanks to Doug Weir from the Conflict and Environment Observatory.

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