COP29 Baku Climate Change Conference

UN Climate Change Conference Baku, Azerbaijan
11-22 November 2024

COP29: What are the key issues on the table?
The UN Climate Change Conference COP29 gets underway on Monday [11 November] in Baku, Azerbaijan.
With climate impacts inflicting growing human and economic costs in every country, every COP is a vital global moment that must deliver major progress, and COP29 is no exception.
Ambitious outcomes in Baku are vital, because unless all countries can cut emissions and build more resilience into global supply chains, no economy – including the G20 – will survive unchecked global heating, and no household will be spared its severe inflationary impacts.
See  UN Climate Change Quarterly Update to learn more about the key issues on the table at COP29, and the wide-ranging preparatory work taking place so governments can arrive in Baku with concrete outcomes within reach.
With climate impacts inflicting growing human and economic costs in every country, every COP is a vital global moment that must deliver major progress, and COP29 is no exception.
COP29 must be an enabling COP, delivering concrete outcomes to translate the pledges made in last year’s historic UAE Consensus into real-world, real-economy results. Finance is key among the outcomes needed this year, and it is entirely in every nation’s interest to ensure COP29 delivers an ambitious new climate finance goal. We can only prevent the climate crisis from decimating lives and livelihoods in every economy if every country has the means to take stronger climate actions, slashing emissions and building resilience in communities, infrastructure and supply chains.
COP29 must also deliver an ambitious set of outcomes on Article 6, and it must elevate the work every government is doing on the all-important policy instruments due under the Paris Agreement. By the end of this year: Biennial Transparency reports. By next year: National Adaptation Plans and much bolder new Nationally Determined Contributions. …
Simon Stiell
Executive Secretary UN Climate Change

25 November
The UN climate summit ended in bitterness and accusations of betrayal. Now fears are growing for its future
(CNN) This year’s UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan kicked off with a fulsome celebration of fossil fuels, praised by the country’s president Ilham Aliyev as a “gift of God.” It ended with a climate finance deal developing countries called an insult, a joke and a betrayal.
The question at COP29 was how much wealthy countries, most responsible for the climate crisis, owe poor countries facing the worst impacts. The answer: $300 billion a year by 2035. Rich countries said it was the best they could do. Poorer countries called it “abysmal,” falling far below the $1.3 trillion economists say they need to cope with a crisis they have not caused.
In the wake of a chaotic, bitter summit and heavily criticized final deal, some experts are asking whether the whole COP process is now so lacking in ambition as to be almost worthless.
Contentious COP29 deal shows climate cooperation fraying at edges
By Valerie Volcovici, Richard Valdmanis and Karin Strohecker
Babayev secures $300 billion climate finance plan
Trump’s election, geopolitical issues overshadow talks
Developing world wanted rich nations to commit more funding
(Reuters) – When COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev stepped to the podium at the closing meeting of the Baku climate summit on Sunday morning, hoping to clinch a hard-fought agreement on global climate finance, he carried with him two speeches.
One was crafted around a hoped-for deal being struck, while the other for the possibility of a summit-collapsing impasse.
Climate conferences are dying. How to save the world now?
This year’s U.N. climate change summit wore its contradictions and failings on its sleeve, prompting existential anxiety.
(Politico Eu) …this year’s summit tested people’s hope like few of the 28 before it. As negotiators dutifully marched ahead, Trump was stacking his Cabinet with climate skeptics and fossil fuel exalters. In Baku, Azerbaijan’s strongman ruler Ilham Aliyev was doing his own fossil fuel proselytizing — from the COP29 podium, no less. Meanwhile, COP veterans bickered and fumed over an open letter from their own allies declaring the annual summits were, essentially, no longer working.

24 November
What the ‘show me the money’ climate summit tells us about the new Trump era
Big-money pledges will be even harder to trust. Fossil fuel producers have more leverage. China is ascendant.
(Politico Eu) During a 14-day conference in which hundreds of billions of dollars in climate finance was in play, it was widely understood that the incoming U.S. president would refuse to pay any amount agreed to by the outgoing Biden administration. President Joe Biden’s emissaries helped orchestrate a multinational pledge for “ambitious” carbon-cutting — but then declined to join it. As the U.S. prepares to retreat from global leadership, much of the rest of the world is now looking to China to fill the void.
Trump’s upcoming presidency was the most important source of the instability on display at the COP29 summit, which ended early Sunday, despite efforts by the Biden administration to signal that America is still on board with the climate cause, said Carlos Fuller, Belize’s permanent representative at the United Nations.
Trump’s rise, along with the resurgence of far-right political movements across Europe, was among the many shadows over the climate talks held in the capital city of oil-rich Azerbaijan. Saudi resistance torpedoed any effort to end the summit with a call to move away from fossil fuels — never mind that a pledge to do just that was supposed to have been the triumphant achievement of the last climate summit less than a year ago.
All the while, scientific evidence has mounted that the Earth’s temperatures are rising toward catastrophic levels.

23 November
COP29 agrees deal to kick-start global carbon credit trading
Climate talks cap a decade of discussion
U.S., EU agree late deal on how to track credits
Could help billions of dollars flow to projects
(Reuters) – Countries agreed a deal at the COP29 climate conference on Saturday on rules for a global market to buy and sell carbon credits that proponents say will mobilise billions of dollars into new projects to help fight global warming.
The agreement, clinched roughly a decade after international talks on forming the market began, hinged on how to ensure credibility in the system so it can reliably lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change.
A testy meeting with rich countries, a $300B take-it-or-leave-it climate offer — and a day of drama
‘We feel as though we are left with nothing,’ a representative of endangered island nations said after countries such as the U.S., China, U.K. and Australia worked overnight to try to break the stalemate.
(Politico) Negotiators from several of the world’s most powerful economies held a contentious meeting in Saturday’s wee hours as they sought to push through a $300 billion-per-year climate financing deal for poorer nations.
But the offer failed to break the stalemate at the COP29 summit. Instead, vulnerable countries that call the money a life-or-death deal pushed back hard for much higher sums — and complained about being locked out of the discussions.
Hours after it appeared that the talks might unravel, the summit’s hosts announced what could be a final deal calling for $300 billion or more in annual funding. That proposal was still awaiting approval as of 2 a.m. Sunday in Azerbaijan.
“We feel as though we are left with nothing from this COP,” Samoan environment minister Cedric Schuster, representing a bloc of 39 island nations, told other countries. He added, “Is this how we treat the countries with the moral high ground in the process, who stand to lose the most and have already lost so much?”
The island nations and the bloc of least-developed countries then walked out of the meeting, leaving the conference on the verge of collapse.
$300bn cash deal for poorer countries rescues COP29 talks from collapse
Climate deal rescued from claws of defeat
(BBC) The new deal, which has just been approved – offers developing countries $300bn per year by 2035, and comes after a day wrought with uncertainty and two weeks of marathon talks.
Nearly 200 countries at the UN’s climate talks in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, have rescued the climate deal from jaws of defeat after summit ran into overtime, after some of the most climate-vulnerable countries stormed out earlier.

Revealed: Saudi Arabia accused of modifying official Cop29 negotiating text
Exclusive: News of changes to usually non-editable document ‘risks placing climate summit in jeopardy’
(The Guardian) A Saudi Arabian delegate has been accused of directly making changes to an official Cop29 negotiating text, it can be revealed.
Cop presidencies usually circulate negotiating texts as non-editable PDF documents to all countries simultaneously, and they are then discussed. Giving one party editing access “risks placing this entire Cop in jeopardy”, one expert said.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is regarded by many as a persistent obstructor of action at UN climate summits to cut the burning of fossil fuels and has been described as a “wrecking ball” at Cop29.
Earlier on Saturday, a document was circulated by the Azerbaijani presidency with updates to the negotiating text on the just transition work program (JTWP). This aims to help countries move to a cleaner and more resilient future, while reducing inequalities.
The document was sent with “tracked changes” from the previously circulated version. In two cases, the document showed edits were made directly by Basel Alsubaity, who is from the Saudi ministry of energy and the lead on the JTWP. It was not sent to other countries to edit, the Guardian was told.
…Two groups – the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries – walked out of a key meeting on Saturday, saying they were not being consulted by the presidency.

22 November
A proposed deal on climate cash at UN summit highlights split between rich and poor nations
(AP) — A new draft of a deal on cash to curb and adapt to climate change released Friday at the United Nations climate summit pledged $250 billion annually by 2035 from wealthy countries to poorer ones. The amount pleases the countries who will be paying, but not those on the receiving end.
It’s more than double the previous goal of $100 billion a year set 15 years ago, but less than a quarter of the number requested by developing nations struck hardest by extreme weather. But rich nations say it’s realistic and about the limit of what they can do.
It struck a sour note for developing countries, which see conferences like this one as their biggest hope to pressure rich nations because they aren’t part of meetings of the world’s biggest economies.
COP29 climate summit overruns as $250 billion draft deal stalls
Summit in Baku runs past scheduled close
Draft finance deal criticised by both developed and developing nations
Broader goal to raise $1.3 trillion annual climate finance by 2035
(Reuters) – The COP29 climate summit ran into overtime on Friday, after a draft deal that proposed developed nations take the lead in providing $250 billion in annual climate finance by 2035 drew criticism from all sides.
Showing some progress late on Friday, the COP29 presidency released what it hopes will be a final deal for resolving rules around carbon markets.
But world governments at the U.N. climate summit were still working into the night on the contours of a sweeping funding plan to tackle climate change.
COP29: Live Reporting
Small island nations ‘deeply disappointed’ with new cash offer
(BBC) The small island nations considered among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change say they are “deeply disappointed” with what they are calling a pitiful offer of cash in the latest proposal.
“We cannot be expected to agree to a text which shows such contempt for our vulnerable people,” the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) group says in a statement.
It includes countries like Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu in the Pacific, and Barbados and Bermuda in the Caribbean. All are massively at risk from sea-level rise with many feeling the impacts already.
They say the proposed $250bn a year by 2030 is a cap that will “severely stagnate climate action efforts”. They say it does not represent a real increase from the previous agreed cash goals of $100bn.
The statement reads: “AOSIS is deeply disappointed in the state of the most recent text, which basically asks Parties ‘How low can you go?’ on climate ambition.”
One observer pointed out that considering inflation, external, the new goal is a 30% reduction on the previous agreed amount of $100bn annually that runs out next year.

19 November
China and India should not be called developing countries, several Cop29 delegates say
Delegates from poorer nations say classifications that date back to 1992 are obsolete and two countries ‘should be contributing’
(The Guardian) China should take on some additional responsibility for providing financial help to the poorest and most vulnerable, several delegates told the Guardian. India should not be eligible for receiving financial help as it has no trouble attracting investment, some said.
Balarabe Abbas Lawal, Nigeria’s environment minister, said: “China and India cannot be classified in the same category as Nigeria and other African countries. I think they are developing but they are in a faster phase than states like Nigeria.
Nearly 200 governments are gathered in Azerbaijan for the second week of fortnight-long climate talks that are focused on how to give poor countries access to the $1tn a year they need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.
Progress has been slow as developed nations have been reluctant to put forward the cash needed, and rows have erupted over the global commitment to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and second biggest economy but is classed alongside some of the poorest countries in the world at the UN talks, and carries no obligation to provide financial help to the developing world.
India is now the world’s fifth largest economy by some measures but is still entitled to receive climate finance.

18 November
Climate summit host faces backlash over support for fossil fuels, crackdown on dissent
Autocratic Azerbaijan is drawing criticism as COP29 host for its stance on fossil fuels, with President Ilham Aliyev calling them a “gift of the God.”
(WaPo) Roughly halfway through the 12-day climate conference known as COP29, critics say that host Azerbaijan is using the global event to boost fossil fuels — while using the tools of autocracy to snuff out dissenting voices.
Though Azerbaijan is hardly the first fossil-fuel-reliant country to host the annual conference, it has been notably loud about its support.
Azerbaijan’s stance has fueled criticism that the talks are losing credibility, and that the selection process for hosting the annual climate conference should be changed.
On Friday, two dozen scientists and climate policy experts, including former United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, published an open letter saying countries uncommitted to the fossil fuel phaseout should be excluded from hosting any COP. Separately on Friday, former U.S. vice president Al Gore said that petrostates, as well as the fossil fuel industry, “have seized control of the COP process to an unhealthy degree,” according to the Associated Press.

17 November
World looks to G20 in Rio for breakthrough in climate talks
U.N. officials urge G20 leaders to break COP29 stalemate
Wealthy nations asking more countries to foot climate bill
Climate accord may only get trickier with return of Trump
(Reuters) – Diplomatic tensions over global warming will take center stage at the G20 summit in Brazil this week, as negotiators at U.N. talks in Azerbaijan hit an impasse on climate finance that they hope leaders of the world’s 20 major economies can break.
Heads of state arriving in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday for the G20 summit will spend Monday and Tuesday addressing issues from poverty and hunger to the reform of global institutions. Still, the ongoing U.N. climate talks have thrown a spotlight on their efforts to tackle global warming.

15 November
Exclusive: Fragile countries make $20 billion climate finance push at COP29, letter says
Conflict and climate-hit nations seek $20 bln+ a year for climate adaptation
g7+ says countries struggle to access funds as seen as too risky
Group to push for explicit support in any final COP29 deal
(Reuters) – A group of conflict-affected countries is pushing at COP29 to double financial aid to more than $20 billion a year to combat the natural disaster and security crises facing their populations, a letter seen by Reuters showed.
The group is one of several pitching at the climate talks in Azerbaijan this week for funds to better prepare for the impacts of extreme weather as countries seek to agree a new annual target on financing.
Island nations, for example, argue climate change threatens their very existence as seas rise, while rainforest nations say they need more money to protect their vast carbon sinks.
Countries mired in conflict and its aftermath say they have struggled to access private investment, as they are seen as too risky. That means U.N. funds are even more critical to their populations, many of whom have been displaced by war and weather.

13 November
‘No sign’ of promised fossil fuel transition as emissions hit new high
Despite nations’ pledges at Cop28 a year ago, the burning of coal, oil and gas continued to rise in 2024
The new data, released at the UN Cop29 climate conference, indicates that the planet-heating emissions from coal, oil and gas will rise by 0.8% in 2024. In stark contrast, emissions have to fall by 43% by 2030 for the world to have any chance of keeping to the 1.5C temperature target and limiting “increasingly dramatic” climate impacts on people around the globe.
Cop29 will focus on mobilising the trillion dollars a year needed for developing nations to curb their emissions as they improve the lives of their citizens and to protect them against the now inevitable climate chaos to come. The summit also aims to increase the ambition of the next round of countries’ emission-cutting pledges, due in February.

12 November
Climate summit highlights the ‘leadership of islands’ (audio)
(The World) The list of “no shows” at the two-week COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan is long: China, the US, Germany, Japan, Australia, France, Brazil and Mexico are all sitting this one out. Someone who did show up, though, is Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. In conversation with The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler, she discusses how the countries most vulnerable to climate change are trying to fill the leadership vacuum.
Development lenders set $120-billion climate finance goal for poorer countries
By Simon Jessop, Virginia Furness and Karin Strohecker
New figure includes $42 billion for extreme weather adaptation
Private sector expected to contribute over $65 billion annual
Multilateral banks say shareholders’ commitments crucial for scaling up efforts
(Reuters) – The world’s top multilateral banks pledged to ramp up climate finance to low- and middle-income countries to $120 billion a year by 2030 as part of efforts at global talks in Azerbaijan on Tuesday to agree an ambitious annual target.
COP29: What is the latest science on climate change?
By Gloria Dickie
(Reuters) – This year’s U.N. climate summit – COP29 – is being held during yet another record-breaking year of higher global temperatures, adding pressure to negotiations aimed at curbing climate change.
The last global scientific consensus on climate change was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however scientists say that evidence shows global warming and its impacts are unfolding faster than expected.
The world may already have hit 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 F) of warming above the average pre-industrial temperature – a critical threshold beyond which it is at risk of irreversible and extreme climate change, scientists say.
A group of researchers made the suggestion in a study released on Monday based on an analysis of 2,000 years of atmospheric gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores that extends the understanding of pre-industrial temperature trends.
Scientists have typically measured today’s temperatures against a baseline temperature average for 1850-1900. By that measure, the world is now at nearly 1.3 C (2.4 F) of warming.
But the new data suggests a longer pre-industrial baseline, based on temperature data spanning the year 13 to 1700, the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said.
Either way, 2024 is certain to be the warmest year on record. …

11 November
Climate Change and Money
By Gwynne Dyer
It’s hard to imagine a less plausible venue for the annual UN-sponsored conference on climate than the dictatorial petrostate of Azerbaijan. Baku, the capital, has a walled medieval centre that’s worth a day or two, but offshore the shallow Caspian Sea is littered with a century’s worth of old and new oil wells.
How did this year’s conference, COP29, end up in Baku? Well, it was the turn of some country in the region formerly ruled by the Russian empire/Soviet Union, and Moscow vetoed all the countries that are not cozy with Russia. That left only Azerbaijan and Armenia, but the latter just lost a war with the former and is flat broke.
Ninety percent of Azerbaijan’s income comes from oil, so the optics of locating the climate conference there were challenging. However, it had the money to host around 50,000 government officials, think-tank policy wonks, investors and campaigners (plus a few climate scientists) for two weeks, and it needed some greenwashing. So the deal was done.
The conference opened on Monday, just a week after climate-denier Donald Trump won the US election. The special attraction this year is that it will be the ‘climate finance COP’ (conference of the parties), where nearly 200 countries debate and perhaps decide on a new climate financing target to replace the $100 billion a year ‘pledge’ that expires this year.
That pledge was needed because the richer countries that industrialised long ago (and put most of the excess CO2 into the atmosphere in the process) must subsidise the poorer counties that are industrialising now so that they put in clean power from the start. If they don’t, the warming goes crazy for everybody.

COP29 begins today. On the table this year: global uncertainty and a looming Trump presidency
Uncertainty looms large ahead of the UN climate conference
(CBC) Uncertainty and corruption are already looming over this year’s climate negotiations, as delegates descend on oil-rich Baku to start talks Monday. …
“There’s a lot at stake for COP29,” says Catherine Abreu, director at the International Climate Politics Hub. “Whether we are able to leave Baku, Azerbaijan, with a successful outcome is going to rely a lot on countries showing leadership and operating in these conversations in good faith.”
The crowning achievement at last year’s COP28 in Dubai was a global consensus on the need to “transition away from fossil fuels.”
But already, BBC News has exposed senior members of the COP29 team using the conference to arrange potential deals for fossil fuel expansion. And the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. has created uncertainty among climate groups, familiar with the former president’s disdain for climate-related action.

A ‘Cop of peace’? How can authoritarian, human rights-trashing Azerbaijan possibly host that?
Greta Thunberg
The ‘theme’ chosen for Cop29 must be some kind of dark joke. This summit, like those before it, is a mere act of greenwashing
(The Guardian) Genocides, ecocides, famines, wars, colonialism, rising inequalities and an escalating climate collapse are all interconnected crises that reinforce each other and lead to unimaginable suffering. While humanitarian crises are unfolding in Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Balochistan, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, and many, many other places, humanity is also breaching the 1.5C greenhouse gas emissions limit, with no signs of real reductions in sight. Instead, the opposite is taking place – last year, global emissions reached an all-time high. Heat records have been shattered, and this year is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year ever recorded, with unprecedented extreme weather events pushing the planet further into uncharted territory. The destabilisation of the biosphere and the natural ecosystems we depend on to survive is leading to untold human suffering and further accelerating the mass extinction of flora and fauna.
Azerbaijan’s entire economy is built on fossil fuels, with the state-owned oil company Socar’s oil and gas exports accounting for close to 90% of the country’s exports. Despite what it might claim, Azerbaijan has no ambition to take climate action. It is planning to expand fossil fuel production, which is completely incompatible with the 1.5C limit and the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change.

10 November
Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2024: Inclusive climate action needed to achieve Paris goals
Climate action by non-Party stakeholders, including businesses, investors, sub-national actors and civil society, is driving progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, and their engagement is more crucial than ever, as highlighted in the 2024 Yearbook of Global Climate Action launched today.
“There can be no comprehensive approach without the involvement of the entire economy and the whole of our societies. And that means we need Parties and non-Party stakeholders to work together, to join efforts, communicating on best ways forward, systematically,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “This is why the Marrakech Partnership is so important, why the examples in this Yearbook are so fundamental, and why they must be scaled up.”

9 November
We can prepare for hurricanes, heatwaves and flooding – but only if we are bold at Cop29
Ban Ki-moon
The right funding now can protect the frontlines of the climate crisis from the worst effects of extreme weather events
(The Guardian) As we approach Cop29 in Baku, world leaders are due to set a new climate finance [Introduction to Climate Finance] goal – a sum set aside to help poor countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. Their negotiations take place against a backdrop of increasingly severe weather events. This year alone, we have witnessed deadly heatwaves across north Africa, Mexico, India and Saudi Arabia; a historic drought across southern Africa; catastrophic wildfires in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands; record-breaking hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US; and plenty more. The climate emergency knows no borders and spares no one.
These events serve as stark reminders of the pressing need for world leaders and all of us to protect vulnerable communities on the frontline of the climate crisis. For many developing countries, particularly in Africa, the cost of climate impacts is staggering. African nations are losing up to 5% of their GDP because of climate extremes, while some are diverting as much as 9% of their national budgets to overcome the fallout from them. The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization estimates that Africa south of the Sahara alone will need $30bn-$50bn annually over the next decade just to meet the costs of protecting communities facing unprecedented climate-related disasters. We will not be able to reduce poverty, eliminate hunger and build a prosperous and resilient global community without addressing the climate crisis.

Why Trump’s 2nd withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will be different
The president-elect could act faster this time.
(Politico) Trump’s vow to pull out would once again leave the United States as one of the only countries not to be a party to the 2015 pact, in which nearly 200 governments have made non-binding pledges to reduce their planet-warming pollution. His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit that begins on Monday in Azerbaijan, where the U.S. and other countries will hash out details related to phasing down fossil fuels and providing climate aid to poorer nations.

7-8 November
International Intrigue: Four reasons next week’s COP29 might be meh
1. A slim attendee list
If there’s one thing world leaders love, it’s hanging out with world leaders. Their teams quietly compare calendars throughout the year: the more leaders commit to an event, the more valuable it is for other leaders to attend, and the more costly it is to miss it.
But many key world leaders are skipping this year’s summit: Joe Biden is preparing to hand the Oval Office keys back to Donald Trump, Ursula von der Leyen is still trying to get her new team approved back in Brussels, and Lula da Silva is still recovering from a nasty fall. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping is focused on reviving his sputtering economy, Putin is focused on invading his neighbour, and Scholz is focused on his own political survival. Even the largest Pacific Island nation and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, Papua New Guinea, is skipping this summit, calling it “a total waste of time”.
2. Some geopolitical drama
This year’s COP host is Azerbaijan, which launched a major military offensive to seize the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, sending the enclave’s ethnic Armenian population fleeing their homes.
While the turf was widely recognised as Azerbaijan’s, the sudden and unilateral move was still widely condemned, including by France, home to Europe’s largest Armenian population. So Macron and his Azerbaijani counterpart (Aliyev) have been bickering since, with Paris accusing Baku of fanning unrest in the French territory of New Caledonia.
So now, as a sign of goodwill (but also to mess with Macron) Azerbaijan has offered to foot the bill for Pacific Island nations (including French ones) to attend this COP. So it’ll use the summit to throw more shade Macron’s way and boost its own standing, which Baku really needs because…
3. Azerbaijan’s vibes
Azerbaijan is known for many things like its never-extinguishing natural fire, but not its civil liberties. And local authorities have cracked down on any off-script voices lately, to prevent them from reaching a global audience during Baku’s big summit.
4. Shifting politics back home
Last year, the world held its breath to see whether countries would commit to an unprecedented ‘phase-out’ of fossil fuels. We got a weaker ‘transition away’ instead, which was itself still a big deal, but also a straw in the wind: this stuff is getting harder. Voters have been punishing governments everywhere lately, fuming at high inflation, cost of living pressures, plus housing affordability, all while wars rage or threaten to rage. …governments are struggling to prioritise any longer-term response.
Which is again why you might not’ve heard much about this year’s COP29.

Trump Stranglehold Adds to Growing Doubts at Climate Talks
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
Nearly 200 nations will soon gather for the annual COP29 summit, where efforts to increase funding for poor countries and slash emissions will run against the reality of a hostile American president.
(Bloomberg) The election of Donald Trump — and his vow to once again undertake a US retreat from international climate diplomacy — poses a decisive threat to the fight against global warming, as the window for meaningful action closes. …
A fresh exodus by the world’s largest economy and second-biggest emitter, reprising a move made during Trump’s first term, could have longer-lasting repercussions this time. Trump is now in position to undermine the already-eroding faith in the climate cooperation that has shaped the past decade. His return promises to destabilize the delicate diplomacy that has galvanized worldwide efforts to slash planet-warming pollution and deploy zero-emission power. Without American engagement, efforts to cut emissions could stall in the decade ahead that’s seen as crucial for keeping Earth’s rising temperatures in check.
Trump’s victory is “an alarming escalation of climate risk for the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “By stepping back from climate commitments, Trump’s actions threaten to unravel trust in a global system already strained by the indifference and inaction of wealthy nations.”
Diplomats are already wrestling with the consequences. Although Trump won’t be sworn in for two months, his election turns the US delegation to COP29 into lame ducks with diminished credibility and less leverage. It will severely complicate negotiations over how much public finance rich countries can deliver to developing nations on the front lines of climate change, a key aim of discussions at this year’s summit. It’s also likely to constrain countries’ ambitions in setting new carbon-cutting pledges due next February.