Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer, Simon Stiell, United Nations Climate Chief, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, President of Azerbaijan and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Front Center Ilham Aliyev pose for a group photo with others in Azerbaijan on Tuesday At the COP29 UN Climate Summit held in Baku, Turkey. Peter Dejong/Associated Press

BAKU, Azerbaijan — World leaders gather Tuesday at the United Nations annual climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, but unlike past climate talks with the star power of the football World Cup, big names and powerful countries are noticeably absent.

But the COP29 climate talks in 2024 are more like the International Chess Federation world championship; It lacks recognizable names but is big on geek power and strategy. Senior leaders of the 13 countries that pollute carbon dioxide the most will not be able to attend the meeting. Their countries are responsible for more than 70% of heat-trapping gases in 2023.

In his speech at the summit, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said, “Those responsible for this are not evident.” “How effective are our actions in this meeting, when the President of France, the country responsible for the Paris Agreement, is not even here, and he thinks it is not relevant? “There’s nothing to be proud of.”

France is not alone. The world’s biggest polluters and most powerful economies (China and the US) do not ship their No. 1s. The heads of state of India and Indonesia also do not attend the meeting; This means that the leaders of the four most populous countries, home to more than 42% of the world’s population, did not make speeches.

“This is symptomatic of the lack of political will to act. There’s no sense of urgency,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. He said this explains “the absolute mess we find ourselves in.”

Leaders emphasize inevitable warming and energy transition

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders in attendance that the world had witnessed the hottest day, month and year in history and a “masterclass in climate destruction”.

But Guterres remained hopeful, saying “the clean energy revolution is at hand,” a veiled reference to Donald Trump’s re-election in the United States. “No group, no business, no government can stop this.”

United Nations officials said there were 180 gigawatts of clean energy and 700,000 electric vehicles in the world in 2016, when Trump was first elected. There are now 600 gigawatts of clean energy and 14 million electric vehicles.

Host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev began the scheduled two-day speech of world leaders by berating Armenia, western news media, climate activists and critics who highlight his country’s rich oil and gas history and trade, calling them hypocrites because the United States is the largest country in the world . oil producer. He said it was “unfair” to call Azerbaijan a “petrostate” because Azerbaijan produces less than 1 percent of the world’s oil and gas production.

Aliyev said that oil and natural gas, like sun, wind and mines, are “gifts of God”. “Countries should not be blamed for having them. And he shouldn’t be blamed for putting these resources on the market just because the market needs them.”

Pastor Fletcher Harper of GreenFaith noted the references to religion in his statement, instead calling fossil fuels “literally the highway to hell for billions of people and the planet.”

Aliyev, the host and chairman of the climate talks called COP29, said that his country will strive for a green transition from fossil fuels, but at the same time, we need to be realistic.

With many heavyweights away, England and smaller nations fill the gap

One of the most important leaders who will hold the talks is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It announced a target of 81% emissions reductions from 1990 levels by 2035, in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Many climate analysts welcomed this announcement. “This sets a strong bar for other countries,” said Debbie Hillier, global climate policy leader for Mercy Corps. Nick Mabey, of climate think tank E3G, said “other nations should follow suit” with high-ambition targets.

Leaders of some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are also making a strong showing. The presidents of several small island nations and more than a dozen leaders from countries across Africa are speaking at the two-day World Leaders Summit.

“Our ancestors draw the tide map with sticks, coconut leaves and shells. It is in our blood to know when a tide will turn. Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said that the tide has turned today regarding the climate. “Time will judge those who fail to make the transition.”

United Nations officials downplayed the head of state’s lack of star power, saying every country was represented and active in climate talks.

One of the logistical problems is that next week the leaders of the most powerful countries have to be half a world away in Brazil for the G20 meetings. Recent elections in the United States, government collapse in Germany, natural disasters and personal illnesses have also kept some leaders away.

Climate negotiators focus on money

The main focus of the negotiations is climate finance, where rich nations are trying to help poor countries with the costs of diversifying their economies away from fossil fuels, dealing with the looming damages of climate change and compensating for losses from extreme weather.

“It’s no surprise that rich nations are trying to downplay the importance of this critical funding COP,” said Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “They are trying to avoid the responsibility of paying.”

Countries negotiate huge amounts of money, from $100 billion to $1.3 trillion a year. Guterres said the money was “not philanthropy, but an investment.” “Developing countries should not leave Baku empty-handed.”

In the backroom of the negotiations, the G77 and China negotiating bloc, which includes many of the world’s developing countries, put forward a joint demand for climate finance of $1.3 trillion annually for the first time. The bloc’s representative said that the framework presented for negotiations was not acceptable to them and would need to be revised.

“We will not be able to achieve a new and strong goal in Baku if it is not shaped to respect the positions of the G77,” said Iskender Erzini Vernoit, director of the Moroccan climate think tank Climate and Development Initiative. “G77 and China set the agenda.”

Copy Story Link