The second week of talks at COP29 in Azerbaijan have started with - as of yet - limited progress and a great deal of frustration amongst attendees. However, it must be remembered that this is the first time ever that a COP has contained substantive negotiations concerning climate finance. The Guardian reminded their readers this morning that the target of 1 trillion dollars is around 1% of the annual global economy, and is less than a third of the amount spent globally on energy each year.
Although delegates from COP29 took a break from negotiations over the weekend, extreme weather events have not similarly paused. There is currently a prolonged drought over nearly half of the US, with residents in New York State evacuated due to wildfires. At least 24 ‘previously impossible heatwaves’ have struck across the planet, with further studies showing that according to estimates ‘millions of people, and many thousands of newborn babies, would not have died prematurely without the extra human-caused heat’. Tropical storm Sara has arrived in the Caribbean, and as predicted last week the Philippines have just been hit by the sixth typhoon in less than a month.
In a rare turn of events, G20 leaders (who contribute 80% of global emissions and combined hold more than 85% of the world’s wealth) are gathering in Rio de Janeiro halfway though the concurrent COP29 summit. Antonio Guterres, the UN’s Secretary General, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev, and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the prominent figures who called for the G20 to increase international cooperation against the climate crisis. In July, finance ministers from the 20 wealthiest nations in the world agreed (in principle) to impose a 2% tax on the super-rich. Brazil spearheaded this initiative during the last G20 summit, and the tax could raise up to $250 billion a year. Argentinian President Javier Milei may now be trying to reverse the agreement, having already withdraw Argentinian negotiators from COP29, but the possibility of the G20 reaching an agreement on climate finance may save the struggling COP29 summit.
UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell declared that ‘every bit of preparation – every policy, every plan – is the difference between life and death for millions of people around the world’ and called on representatives to ‘cut the theatrics’ and reach an agreement. He highlighted that adaptation costs for developing countries could rise to $340 billion per year by 2030, and called for an agreement on climate finance to protect people (half the global population) living in climate vulnerability hotspots. The climate finance text is being worked on, but still sits at an extortionate 25 pages. It will need to be shorter, and this week will decide which nations will compromise. Brazilian and British ministers have been drafted in in an attempt to help push forward the negotiations, with Chris Bowen, the Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister, further stating that the finance goal needed to cover four big issues: the quantum, the contributor base, the structure of a funding agreement, and accessibility for all – especially Pacific countries.
Australia, who is currently competing with Turkey to host COP31 in 2026, has come under heavy criticism from Vanuatu and Tuvalu, two island nations in the Pacific. The criticism stems from Australian plans to expand its gas industry, with representatives of the island-states arguing that the proposed expansion would result in 125 times more greenhouse gas emissions than their entire nations release in a year. Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change, said that Australia, as the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, was ‘not acting in good faith’ and promulgating ‘climate injustice’.
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Stripe and Berkeley Earth, today stated that ‘the goal to avoid exceeding 1.5C is deader than a doornail’ as a result of international inaction. This sobering statement comes as 2024 appears set to become the hottest year on record – the preceding ten years have already been the hottest ten ever recorded.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, published a letter on Monday calling for Azerbaijan to release jailed human rights defenders and journalists. He noted that more than ten staff and journalists from three different media outlets have been arrested on charges of foreign currency smuggling, tax evasion, and forging documents in 2023. He further mentioned reports ‘of ill-treatment and torture of several human rights defenders, journalists and activists…as well as restrictions on the right of access to a lawyer of their choice’.
Although not part of COP29’s official agenda, the UK and the US signed a new agreement for civil nuclear collaboration at the COP29 summit today. The agreement was signed by the UK’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and David Turk, the US Deputy Secretary for Energy. The US and the UK are both among the signatories to the agreement to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050.
In a rare example of collaboration, the US and China have reaffirmed their respective commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions other than CO2, but senior US officials are still arguing that without ambitious climate action from China the world will not meet the 1.5C target.
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