The world’s biggest polluters and most powerful economies (China and the US) do not ship their No. 1s. So are India and Indonesia. These are the four most populous countries in the world, and more than 42 percent of the world’s population is here.

“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.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told emerging world leaders that the world was seeing a “master class in climate destruction” in what is sure to be the hottest year on record.

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.”

UN 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 speeches of world leaders with a harsh rebuke of Armenia, the western news media, climate activists and those who criticize his country’s rich oil and gas history and trade, criticizing them because the United States is the world’s greatest leader. He called it hypocritical. 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 are “gifts of God” just like the sun, wind and mines. “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.”

The Rev. Fletcher Harper of GreenFaith, a faith-based environmental activism group, responded by calling fossil fuels “literally the highway to hell for billions of people and the planet.”

Aliyev said his country will strive for a green transition from fossil fuels, but we also need to be realistic.

One of the most important leaders who will hold the talks is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It announced a target of 81 percent 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. This is more than the 78 per cent the UK has committed to.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK have almost halved from 1990 levels; this was mainly due to the almost complete elimination of coal from electricity generation.

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 during the two-day World Leaders Summit portion of the conference.

“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.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez noted that the deadly floods that hit his country last month “would have been less likely and less intense had it not been for the impact of climate change.”

“We must ensure that natural disasters do not multiply or recur,” he said. “Let’s do what we promised to do in Paris seven years ago.”

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.

The main focus of this year’s talks is climate finance; richer countries compensate poorer countries for damages caused by climate change’s extreme weather, help them pay to shift their economies away from fossil fuels, and help them adapt.

“It is not surprising 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 evade their responsibility to pay.”

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.”

Climate analysts welcomed the announcement by a group of 11 multilateral development banks, including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, that annual climate finance should reach $120 billion for the rest of the decade.