BAKU, Azerbaijan — Under a cloud of eye-watering petrochemical smog, the UN’s 29th climate summit (COP29) kicked off here today with bold promises but few specific ideas on how to prevent what many negotiators fear will drag the rest of the United States into a tailspin. The world is on the edge of the climate cliff.

While it is possible for other countries to raise their climate targets regardless of what the United States does under the Trump-elect, they cannot stop the estimated additional 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions his policies could unleash, pollution that would still overheat the world. climate hundreds of years later.

It was stated that these 4 billion tons of emissions were a “death sentence for the planet” Jamie Mindensenior director of organization Zero HourAt one of the first press conferences of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, a nonprofit climate advocacy group, global climate advocacy organizations sought to chart a roadmap for climate action in the United States and around the world in the coming years. .

Global warming is already approaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline; scientists say this level is dangerous climate feedback loops It will probably kick in and accelerate the warming even further.

Minden stated that his organization was founded in 2017, together with other groups that were faced with the policies of the previous Trump administration that they thought harmed the climate and the environment, and said, “We have confronted the Trump administration before.” “Young people refuse to go quietly into the night.”

The press conference by U.S. and international climate advocacy groups was one of several on the first day of COP29 that showcased the global unease and confusion revealed by last week’s election results.

“We know that we will face more extreme opposition in the next four years than we have in the past,” Minden said. “It’s utter madness that politicians continue to expand and subsidize fossil fuels, but right now young people are feeling determined. “We fight for our planet because we face some of the worst consequences of the relentless greed of these thoughtless politicians, and we feel optimism, hope and love.”

Will the USA Step Up at This Year’s COP?

In Baku, climate activists expect the Biden administration to make one last major push for climate action by backing an ambitious new global climate finance goal, ending subsidies for fossil fuels and taking other steps to “seal the climate legacy and create a bulwark.” “Providing protection against Trump’s destruction,” he said. Ben GoloffWith the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We need to see that the Biden administration is really putting its money where its mouth is,” he said, adding that the United States could still be a constructive force in the development of a new global climate finance plan, one of the big goals of COP29. .

Goloff said one of the most important things Biden could do in the final months of his term would be to go to the Council meeting. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development He’s in Paris next week with a plan to cut or halt funding for new fossil fuel development projects.

Back in the U.S., Goloff said Biden should fill as many federal court vacancies as possible.

“This is the key,” he said. “We need the legal system to work for us as we fight against Trump’s devastating attacks on communities. We’ve done this before. “We will do this again.”

Environmental groups won about 80 percent of the lawsuits they filed against the first Trump administration, Goloff said.

“We can do this again and improve it,” he said. “Filling vacancies in the federal judiciary is a very permanent thing. “Unfortunately, we know this very well from the first Trump administration.”

Goloff said most existing or new measures blocking various fossil fuel development plans, including natural gas exports and pipelines, could be mostly rolled back by Trump, but the new administration should “reframe the whole situation” that the projects are publicly available. interest.

“This will take many, many months,” he said. “This provides more time for lawsuits, grassroots responses, throwing sand into gears, life-saving time to prevent major polluting fossil fuel projects.”

Developing Countries Seek $1 Trillion in Climate Finance

The US election results will also color discussions on climate finance, one of the main topics of COP29. As part of the Paris Agreement, countries have pledged $100 billion a year globally to accelerate developing countries’ transitions to low-carbon economies and respond to the harm they are already suffering from climate change. Developed countries finally met this target by mobilizing $115.9 billion in 2022, but this amount was unfortunately found to be below what was needed, and plans to increase climate finance have been in the works for several years.

“This year is the year of climate finance,” he said Liane Schalatekdeputy director Heinrich Böll Foundation In Washington, D.C., he leads the foundation’s efforts to finance the clean energy transition and climate adaptation. Developing countries say at least $1 trillion a year is needed for the energy transition and climate adaptation, but the expected US rollback on climate policy will make meeting that goal even harder, he said.

He said he did not think there would be much confidence that any negotiations currently taking place would deliver what was needed, given the possibility that the United States could again withdraw from the Paris Agreement and potentially the UNFCCC.

“I was struck by the almost eerie parallel to last time,” he said, referring to Trump’s reversal of the Obama administration’s previous $3 billion commitment to climate financing. He said it would be difficult for a Democratic administration to fulfill that promise given U.S. politics, but said “forget it” when it comes to Trump.

And he said it sent a “terribly discouraging message” to other countries involved in finance discussions.

“It’s really hard to see how you can do that if you know that there is no way the United States will participate in any way, and whoever is there in terms of negotiators will not have the authority to negotiate anything. “Persuade countries that already feel they will have difficulty (to negotiate),” he said.

If the United States has any claim to leadership on climate, Trump’s dismissal of international climate governance as a hoax completely undermines it “at a critical time when we only have four or five years left in this critical decade for climate action.”

He said his administration’s attitude towards the UNFCCC process after Trump’s election in 2016 could be described as negligent. But this time it could be worse.

“The question for me is: How destructive can they be?” he said. During the first Trump administration, U.S. negotiators continued to be involved in climate finance discussions, “but they stayed quiet or focused on issues like transparency and accountability. So they weren’t really actively trying to hinder or be obstructive in the process.”

The exception, he added, were several Green Climate Fund board meetings attended by one of Trump’s political appointees.

“He was basically trying to push everyone’s buttons to make people angry,” he said. “And to me, that’s the difference between benign neglect and sabotage.”

But at this point, no one knows exactly what to expect from the United States at UN climate talks next year and beyond, so some countries are taking a wait-and-see approach, saying they will try to work with the new administration in areas where they have interests. overlap, such as carbon capture and hydrogen-based energy.