NOTE:This article is limited in its scope. Its purpose is to look at the viability of the COPs in terms of facing the existential threat of climate change following the Paris Agreement. It does not cover the innovative and independent efforts of many countries, notably including those vulnerable countries currently addressing the very real on the ground challenges facing them today, sg crowell.
UPDATE:The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, holds public hearings on the request for an advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, from 2 to 13 December 2024, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. Session held under the presidency of Judge Nawaf Salam, President of the Court.Watch proceedings here:
There is consensus among scientists and experts that countries must cut emissions in half by 2030, phase out fossil fuels, and move quickly to replace them with the clean energy solutions that are available today.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is a group of nations that have signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was put together in 1992. It commits parties to act together to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system”. Since then the Parties, or nations, have met almost annually. The over-riding areas of negotiation are mitigation, adaptation, and transitions to clean energy.
COP29, which opened on November 11 in Baku, took place in the petro state of Azerbaijan with the slogan, Solidarity for a Green World. Mr. Mukhtar Babayev was elected as President of the COP. The key mission of COP29 was to set a new finance goal. This included the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) aimed at a new financial target to support developing countries in their climate actions post-2025. The mandate to address climate finance followed the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.
Climate finance refers to local, national or transnational financing drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing to support mitigation and adaptation actions to address climate change. It was expected, or at least hoped, that this topic would find some viable commitments at COP 29.
COP29 topics to be addressed included institutionalizing a loss and damages fund, submitting nationally determined contributions (NDCs) due in early 2025, emissions reduction, a global goal for adaptation (GGA), national adaptation plans (NAP), addressing unequal climate impacts and locally led adaptations (LLA), nature -Based solutions (NBS) and indigenous rights.
Dig Deeper - The World Resources institute offers an understanding of the complexities of climate finance here.
On the opening day Azerbaijan formally assumed the COP Presidency.
VULNERABLE COUNTRIES IN ATTENDANCE HAD SOMETHING TO SAY
Higher-level world leaders (heads of state and government spoke on behalf of their negotiating teams November 12 through 13. There were 106 speakers registered for those days. 58 speakers were registered for a second round of speakers on November 19-20.
The list of speakers included leaders of developed and developing nations which included the countries most vulnerable to climate change and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). These speakers shared how their nations had been hit by climate change crises; floods, fires, landslides, and flash flooding as relentless and quickened peak episodes.
The warning message presented by Grenada’s prime minister Dickon Mitchel to developed countries was “it may be SIDs today. It will be Spain tomorrow. It will be Florida the day after. It’s one planet.”
The prime minister of the Bahamas, Phillip Edward Davis, said, “it will be our children and grandchildren who bear the burden; their dreams reduced to memories of what could have been.
Referring to a trail of broken promises as outcomes of the previous COPs, Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda highlighted the "inverted morality" of big emitters who aren't taking responsibility." He portended in relation to the COPs ”small island nations will have to seek justice and compensation in international courts.”
The High Ambition Coalition, an intergovernmental organization representing 119 countries and co-chaired by France and Costa Rico, said at a UN meeting in New York just prior to COP29, "we must also accelerate the transformation of the international financial architecture, so that it addresses long-standing inequities to deliver finance to those that need it most. This includes taking forward initiatives such as the Bridgetown Initiative, the Paris Pact for People and Planet, the Nairobi Declaration, and the Expert Review on Debt, Climate and Nature."
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados and the new President of the Climate Vulnerable Forum and Vulnerable 20, is a prominent leader of SIDS as well as the author of The Bridgetown Initiative, which aims to stop poorer countries from spiraling into debt during climate disasters. She has remained a consistent, proponent for revisiting the funding structure, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as applied to debt ridden and vulnerable small island states. She warned that climate-driven extreme weather in the past year suggests that humanity and the planet are hurling towards what may be regarded not a tipping point but as the ultimate tipping point. She said her own region had experienced serious damage to housing, public infrastructure, agriculture and fisheries. She outlined her view of priorities for COP29:
a. Loss and damages remained underfunded despite numerous crises and there was no mechanism in place yet to access emergency funding.
b. The New Collective Quantified Goal required a commitment to reform the global financial architecture within the UNFCCC process and by international financial institutions. The principles of the Bridgetown initiative 3.0 must be adopted toward financial reforms
c. Donors and recipients of funding must be transparent and accountable. Donors must deliver on promises and ensure that giving happens within a certain time frame and measures must exist to guard again double and triple county of the same funds.
d. Countries that are major carbon producers must agree in principle that they can painlessly and substantially boost annual climate contributions without adding to the national debt of already burdened developing countries. She noted the viability of possible funding streams toward that end. For example, 1% on stocks and bond trades could raise $418 billion; dollars per ton of CO2 could raise $80 billion; a levee on fossil fuel extraction of five dollars per ton of CO2 could raise some $210 billion.
CARBON MARKET APPROVAL?
Governments at the COP29 talks on Monday, November 11, approved new UN standards for international carbon markets to allow countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets. The Parties reached consensus on the standards for Article 6.4 and a dynamic mechanism to update them.
However, there was much to be negotiated regarding safeguards and governance. Article 6.2 would be the largest global carbon pricing and trading platform in the world with plans to be launched in 2025. But crucial aspects of Article 6 were still missing in discussions.
An international carbon market that is integrated into a global market with trade across borders does not effectively exist. A framework needs to be developed. There is a need for international governance standardization and quality control. A registry where credits will be physically traded needs to be created. Technical committees operating within a supervisory body still needed to develop and approve a series of tools that developers of carbon credit projects could apply to demonstrate that emission reductions to removals were credible, durable, and did not create any unintended harm. These endeavors will take time, most likely beyond a year.
There is good reason why negotiations surrounding carbon markets stalled in previous COPs. Although Article 6 of the Paris Agreement had created principles for carbon markets and some rules had been established, there was a failure to reach agreement regarding carbon markets at COP26, COP27 and COP28. The latter COP was the first formal recognition of the contributions of the gas, oil, and coal industries to climate change even as anti-greenwashing sentiment increased. Science questioned the efficacy of the carbon market while human rights and environmental organizations questioned the fairness of the carbon market.
In his opening speech President Aliyev of the host country, Azerbaijan, accused the western media of misinformation and accusations about the country's gas and oil production. He emphasized that, like silver and gold, gas and oil is a natural resource; a gift from God. He noted that Azerbaijan had provided energy security to the European countries that needed this resource and were asked by these countries to step up gas and oil production. He said it was a double standard and a hypocrisy. He said that a campaign had been planned to boycott COP29. It failed.
This was the third COP to be held in a "petro state", a term he rejected. The divisions reflected in his speech could be seen as a warning that, without neutrality and honesty on the part of all Parties regarding the production and consumption of fossil fuels, the critical challenge of formulating reasonable transitions from fossil fuels, given varying needs, would be hard to meet.
The President contradicted pre-COP29 understandings that there were areas to be negotiated. His speech, along with the heavy-handed presence of large fossil fuel producers attending COP29, where deals were made for the buying and selling of fossil fuels, did not bode well for the direction COP29 in terms of climate ambitions.
In subsequent communications the President described gas and oil resources as “a gift from God” more than once. He circumvented the need for negotiations as he pushed carbon credit projects as a singular priority; even though there is still little evidence that carbon markets as a panacea will actually reduce emissions and instead might further drag down climate ambitions, particularly since no standards have been agreed upon. The President was further emboldened by the technical committee's avoidance of further negotiations on standards.
In Climate Change News, [T]he technical committee had taken matters into its own hands after diplomats failed at two successive COPs to agree on guidance for the development of carbon-credit methodologies and carbon removal activities. In a surprise move at its last meeting before the summit, the Supervisory Body approved these key documents as “standards” instead of sending them as recommendations to be fought over in Baku, as had previously been the norm.
A Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation analysis published in 2023 included the statement that “resistance to carbon trading may have never been more important than now,” The Foundation’s report observed that Article 6 carbon pricing and offset mechanisms actually expanded programs that justified more fossil fuel extractions.
In Le Monde,, Erika Lennon, from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said “No matter how much integrity there is in the sort of carbon markets, if what you are doing is offsetting ongoing fossil fuels with some sort of credit, you are not actually reducing anything.”
As an added note, during COP29 proceedings it was learned that the oil giant Shell had won a landmark case in the Dutch courts, overturning an earlier ruling in 2021 requiring it to cut its carbon emissions by 45%. The Hague Court of Appeal said it could not establish that Shell had a "social standard of care" to reduce its emissions by 45% or any other amount, even though it agreed the company had an obligation to citizens to limit emissions. The environmental group can now take its case against Shell to the Supreme Court, but a final verdict could be years away.
COP28 might have been the first time that participants formally recognized that fossil fuel production and consumption were key factors in climate change, however it did not leave enough of an impression on the largest emitters. Not only was there little sign of changing practices, fossil fuel production actually increased as did greenwashing.
DAY 4 at COP29 - FINANCE DAY
Many high- level leaders left for the airport. The Green Zone opened. Day 4 was "finance day" - who was going to pay what, to whom, and how?
The purpose of COP29 was to address a more relevant, fair, and robust climate finance architecture and to set a ambitious new collective target that was fair to both developed and developing countries. Toward this end, climate financing required a shift from reactive, incremental and project based financing to “more anticipatory, strategic and transformational adaptation and mitigation schemes. COP29 was the time to adjust the funding structure toward this end.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) goals set on September 25, 2015, had cast a broad net with 17 goals and 169 targets that were foundational to combating climate change. The agenda had called for a 2030 date for achieving these goals. Unfortunately, only 17% of the SDG targets had been met by 2024. Factors that have limited achievements include the pandemic, wars, countries a fragile global economy, inequities, climate emergencies, and poverty. To one degree or another all these factors affected both developed and developing countries.
Achieving climate change goals depend on cooperative efforts between countries and stakeholder engagement. In 2009, developed countries agreed that by 2020, they would collectively mobilize $100 billion per year to support developing countries’ decarbonization and adaptation plans. This obligation was not considered needs-based, but rather a political commitment that at least symbolically recognized developed countries' responsibility to provide financial support to developing countries. The commitment was not honored until 2022. The $100 billion figure was set to expire in 2025.
Supported by more recent climatic episodes that defied national boundaries and scientific proof of longer term trends, it was noted in a UN 2020 report that the $100 billion target was a floor; not a ceiling. The figure needed to be ramped up by 2025 to $300 billion or better $400 billion to be supplemented by additional funds from the private sector and multilateral development banks. If this didn't happen starting in 2022 climate action would fall far short of what is needed.
A UNEP (UN Environmental Program) report titled The adaptation Gap Report 2024: Come Hell and High Water reported on a continual lag in adaptation planning and implementation. For instance, delivery of the 2020 climate funding to recipients had been two years late. The report addressed the pressing need for speeding up progress toward an adaptation financing scheme that worked. Currently, efforts were often uncoordinated , expensive and short term.
Furthermore, the established $100 billion figure must recognize the needs of the different countries. For example, much of the funding going to the most vulnerable countries was in the form of loans rather than grants, where the latter only amounted to around $12 billion even though 54% of low-income countries were deemed to be in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress as of September 2020. These countries had little chance of paying the loans back. In addition, wealthier countries had a better chance at low interest loans. There needed to be be an increase in grants versus loans.
An IHLEG (Independent High-level Expert Group), an independent expert group in support of the COPs’ climate finance agendas, produced a third report on policy options and recommendations to deliver commitments and targets under the UNFCCC following the Paris agreement. The key categories in the report were clean energy transition, adaptive adaptation and resilience, loss and damage, natural capital, and just transition. IHLEG experts said two-thirds of a proposed change to $300 billion would be dedicated to transitioning developing economies away from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy. The rest should be divided between adaptation measures to cope with climate change, recovery funds when disaster hits, and conservation of nature.
The report warned that any short fall in investment before 2030 would place added pressure on the years that follow.
BARBARIANS AT THE CORPORATE GATE
What was missing from any meaningful equation of who should get what was what developing countries actually have had to pay out for a problem they did not cause. The voice of protesters outside the formal meetings called for justice.
Names of the dead were put on sheets and unfurled.
A giant invoice underlay the protester's demand for trillions not billions in climate finance. The invoice displayed itemized cost of loss and damages, adaptation, and mitigation already being born by developing countries through taxes, loans, and other means while ten designated countries most impacted by climate change between 2002 and 2019 received less than 2% of all climate finance. According to a report from Christian Aid, The International High-Level Expert Group (IHLEG) on climate finance, made up of leading economists, anticipated that by 2030 the more vulnerable developing countries would spend about $1.4 trillion a year from their own budgets on climate-related activities.
The Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance puts developing countries' need for external climate finance at around $1 trillion a year by 2030; $1.3 trillion by 2035. Within the trillion, they estimate around $500 billion needs to be public finance and around $500 billion from private finance.
A report published in 2023 by the IHLEG said countries needed to invest $2.4 trillion annually across the priorities of a just energy transition, adaptation and resilience, loss and damage, and the conservation and restoration of nature. Around $1 trillion would need to come from international sources of finances.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assesses progress towards the UNFCCC goal, established in 2009, of providing $100 billion in climate finance to developing countries annually. Its report said advanced economies needed to supply $ 6.5 trillion dollars on average per year to developing countries by 2030 in order to meet climate targets ( excepting China, which was not listed in the original developed nations category and EMD (Emerging Markets and Developing Countries/Economies).
According to an OECD report private investments are important toward meeting climate goals. However, to date these investments have been grossly insufficient. There is a need for governments to educate investors as to the advantages of moving away from the traditional climate static model toward changing circumstances that hold economic and social returns.
FUNDING CATEGORIES
"Loss and damage" refers to the impacts that go beyond what communities can adapt to, such as the loss of homes and lives during severe storms. Many assessments of global climate finance needs, including the IHLEG's reporting, had already include loss and damage in their estimates.
The first-ever Global Stocktake (GST), which was implemented at COP28, showed that developing countries face a significant challenge in funding loss and damage. Economic costs alone for these countries are estimated to reach between $447-$894 billion per year by 2030. And that's without factoring in non-economic losses and damages, such as the loss of cultural heritage, health, mental health, and loss of access to education. The message from the first Stocktake "urged" developed countries and "encouraged" other countries to provide support for activities to address loss and damage.
Day 4 saw arguments that all countries, developed and developing nations, suffered economic hard times from wars and climate change and it was difficult to determine what equitable needs existed with the small island states. Loss and damages and must deal with relative impacts, unpredictability and adaptations. The developed nations, nervous about their own future liabilities, argued that loss and damage funding is voluntary and covered under a different part of the negotiation process.
The first round of Nationally Determined Contributions(NDCS) was instituted in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement. 196 countries agreed to submit new NDCs every five years. Following the Paris Agreement, Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are voluntary commitments by treaty, submitted every five years, that countries made to reduce their greenhouse emissions as part of climate change mitigation. The Paris Agreement requires each of the 193 Parties to prepare, communicate and maintain NDCs outlining what they intend to achieve. Their described ambitions have no legal requirement.
NDCs were published as pre-session documents for the Glasgow Climate Change conference held in October to November 2021. 165 NDC's were registered out of 192 Parties under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015. NDC syntheses are updated annually by the UN. A UN 2020 report on NDC submissions showed that collectively the pledges were inadequate in terms of meeting a 1.5C goal. The collective findings were that the world was "way off track" in meeting the targets set forth in the Paris Agreement.
The first GST compiled at COP28 depended on NDC accountings. These accounts were effectively the most centralized accounting as to where things stand in combatting climate change. NDC findings are fed into the GST, which is also on a five year cycle.
In terms of means of implementation, no dollar amounts appear in NDCs but in cases there are references as to funding streams that might support their goals. In other cases, Parties provided more quantitative estimates of financial support needs.
Based on UN reports, while countries had overall made meaningful progress since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, current NDC commitments fell far short of what is needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C, with current commitments on track for 2.5-2.9ºC of warming.
The 168 latest available NDCs, out of the 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement, showed 153 new or updated NDCs were communicated by 180 Parties, recorded in the NDC registry as of September 25 2023.
A 2023 NDC synthesis report for adaptation, dated November 14, 2023, shows countries common concerns across categories. For instance, NDCs showed a significant disparity between countries’ existing NDC targets and their means of implementation, which includes finding funding sources, meaning emissions will likely be higher in 2030 than current NDCs implied.
Additionally, more recent NDC changes reveal how keenly countries are experiencing external events that could alter their ambitions.
NDC pledges might be unconditional or conditional. The cost of war is an issue that remains too much in the background. While a number of vulnerable countries have had trouble meeting the "ambitious efforts" of NDCs, This was particularly true of Palestine. A revised NDC submitted by The State of Palestine, a Party to the Paris Agreement affirms its commitment but brings home a story of invasion in its summary of changes as outline in the comparative table it provided below.
Palestine's Independence Scenario: 2017, 24.4% emissions reduction by 2040 relative to business-as-usual; 2021 26.6% emissions reduction by 2040 relative to business as usual.
Status-quo Scenario as an occupied state: In relation to business as usual, 2017 revision, 12.8% emissions reduction by 2040. In relation to 2021 business as usual, 17.5 emissions reduction by 2040.
The next round of NDCs, known as "NDCs 3.0", are due in early 2025. Collectively, NDCs will detail countries' intended climate actions through 2035 and offer further insights.
Brazil's (the future site of COP30), extensive NDC gives a picture of the Amazon and the devastation to date and offers the caveat that no country could achieve goals alone and that international cooperation between countries was essential.
AFTER THOUGHTS
COP29 ran past its deadline and, among its fractured results and missing pieces, ultimately decided at the last minute on $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance by 2035, with developing countries paying $300 billion of that amount where at the least developing countries wanted at least $900 billion in public finance by that date (G77 countries had a $500 billion demand).
The delay until the last minute, manufactured or otherwise, short-changed a more inclusive and definitive outcome that set a viable foundation to effectively meet the needs of both developed and developing countries regarding climate-finance.
Another likely roadblock was the likelihood that developed countries had come into the process with a lower figure in mind due to a number of reasons including new political climates, their own climatic crises, endless wars, economic priorities, and the past pandemic.
A number of revisions of the NCQG text for review took place on COP29's last day. Progress had been slow. Developed and developing countries were divided: who should pay what, how much, and when? Fears that no agreement would be reached by that final day of COP29 were realized. While thousands of attendees left, those who remained behind had a long weekend ahead. The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, responded to a late text from the presidency by describing the process as a “genuine attempt”. In reference to continued negotiations after the deadline, he said there would be “long and tough conversations” into the night...I think we’re in a genuinely finely balanced situation."
The reality was COP29 was not a balanced situation and maybe lacked enough tough conversations. Gas and oil interests were dictating terms.
As COP29 came to a close a draft, NCQG text was distributed for review by the host. However, decision makers again were met with text that brought more questions than answers. For instance, any reference to amounts was put as an "X" in parentheses by the host which left little bargaining room.
When the amounts were added in a subsequent draft there were mixed reactions. Throughout the back and forth the more vulnerable states were quite clear however that the proposed numbers fell far short of what these states needed, particularly given what these states had spent and will spend to address series of climatic crises.
The figure in a subsequent draft was $250 billion, not the $300 billion requested. The 1.3 trillion, with its vague delivery message, was accepted by some and condemned by others. Overall the reaction to the new text from civil society groups and countries whose crises alone exceeded $250 billion was negative.
Some negotiators and civil society groups representing more vulnerable countries said that it might be best to walk away and assume a legal recourse.
Mariana Paoli from Christian Aid said, "[I]t is baffling that despite everyone knowing all year that this was the ‘finance COP’, rich countries are still refusing to put substantial enough funding pledges on the table. This is irresponsible, immoral and risks condemning both people and planet. Developing countries would be better walking away from the table than signing up to this garbage."
In Euronews, an open letter from climate experts called for a structural overhaul of COP29. The experts recognized the importance of the work that previous COPs had accomplished under the Paris Agreement. However the structure no longer fits the situation and needed to change. It had become inaccessible and exclusive which particularly affected front line communities already experiencing the worst from climate change.
Dr Vaibhav Chaturvedi, senior fellow, Council on Energy, Environment and Water in India said:The $1.3 trillion USD number is at best a sham. Even the apparent increase in the provision from developed world to developing world of USD $250 billion USD annually by 2035 is the same as the $100 billion USD by 2020 if 6% annual average inflation is accounted for.
Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International global public finance manager, said, "This text is an absolute embarrassment. It’s the equivalent of governments handing the keys to the firetruck to the arsonists. The vaguely $1.3 trillion investment target which depended too much on private money including from the very nations that had caused the problem is not to be relied on and the $250 billion is not debt-free."
Panama’s lead negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez,“The $250 billion offered by developed countries is a spit on the face of vulnerable nations like mine. They offer crumbs while we bear the dead. Outrageous, evil and remorseless.”
The IHLEG, said that parties for climate action from all public and private sources amounting to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035 from all public and private sources was reasonable. "This is consistent with our analysis of the investments and external finance required by developing countries, outside of China, the second heaviest emitter and categorized as a developing nation, to deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement. However $250 billion from developed to developing countries is too low and not consistent with delivery of the Paris Agreement.” at the least [developed countries] should commit to provide at least $300 billion per year by 2030, and $390 billion per year by 2035."
Amb Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s Special Envoy for chair of the African Group of Negotiators brought some context to funding needs as he reiterated the importance of prioritizing adaptation and said there was still no established guidance regarding the inclusion of the indicators to track the means of implementation for the adaptation.
He said, “[T]he proposed target to mobilize $250 billion per year by 2035 is totally unacceptable and inadequate to delivering the Paris Agreement. The Adaptation Gap Report alone says the adaptation needs are at the least $400 billion; $250 billion will lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and around the world, and imperils the future of our world. Just transition is about fairness, international cooperation, shared prosperity and access to economic opportunities, as well as addressing challenges for the transitions. The Baku decision should effectively respond to the Dubai mandate and scope of just transitions.”
Negotiations passed the official deadline of November 22 and drafts of the NCQG were distributed.
On November 23, the day after the official end of COP29, the Alliance of Small Island States (SIDs) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), (the list changes according to countries' updated circumstances) said they want a guaranteed 30% of climate finance, and then walked out of a finance meeting.
The EU sent a message regarding the above that this playing board is on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable countries. "We, as a European Union, will not accept a deal that comes at the expense of those who suffer most from the effects of climate crisis.
On November 24, in the final draft the $250 billion amount was raised to $300 billion and agreement was reached on a $1.3 trillion amount by 2030. The $300 billion figure of that amount could be seen as a down-payment that will come primarily in grants and low-interest loans.
How does $300 billion stack up in all fairness? Comparisons presented by Karin Strohecker and Simon Jessop writing for Reuters show how little the amount is. For instance, "$300 billion is currently the price tag for all the crude oil used by the world in a little over 40 days, according to Reuters calculations based on global crude oil demand of approximately 100 million barrels/day and end-November Brent crude oil prices. $300 billion pays for about 45 days of global military spending. Hurricane Katrina in the US caused around $200 billion in damage in 2005. Two more recent climate fueled hurricanes in the US are expected to cost a combined $350 billion. Then there is Elon Musk's fortune. His net worth stood at "$321.7 billion in late November" and, in a report cited in The Guardian, headed for trillionaire status by 2027.
In terms of the developing countries, the $1.3 trillion amount would have to come from private investors and largely unknown other sources with no guarantees or idea of the costs or agendas to the recipients.
These figures and the attached conditions represented a betrayal in the eyes of climate change organizations and activists.
The American Elephant
We will frack, frack, frack and drill, baby, drill, Donald Trump, October 18.
The final agreement that was made, despite the unprecedented chaos that existed at COP29, showed little impetus regarding gas, and oil, and coal interests to change their practices and for states to implement laws and policies toward that end. Previous suggestions to end fossil fuel handouts and make polluters pay were all but axed at COP29.
While the host nation, Azerbaijan cited some of the country's green energy projects in process in its opening statement, it also said it wants to expand gas production by up to a third in the next decade.
COP29 effectively left the matter of reducing emissions as it had stood in COP28. It will be up to COP30 to bring any changes home while facing a new and bitter challenge.
Mr. Trump, the new president-elect in America, had cast a large shadow over proceedings which influenced the decisions and delays that occurred at COP29.
His plan to expand fracking on public and private lands, the largest source of fossil fuel production in the US, represented a Hobbesian scenario in the US that transgressed all international efforts to combat climate change
It was apparent that the US will not have a president who can or will provide leadership in support of what is needed to ensure equity between countries regarding the Paris Agreement, which he had announced he tends to leave.
Rather, the president-elect plans to ramp up the already booming US LNG production. Furthermore, Project 2025 calls for lessening restrictions that attempt to reduce methane output, which has been proven to contribute to climate change.
Given the current global political climate favoring a number of right-wing governments, Trump's plan for increased LNG production, including on federal lands, portends a strong possibility that other countries will follow Trump's lead with misleading anti-scientific logic for public consumption such as the reasoning that natural gas as a solution to the use of coal will reduce emissions.
THE ROLE OF MISINFORMATION IN THE FACE OF FACTS
During COP29 a group of 51 organizations and 42 climate & information integrity experts called for action to address climate disinformation. Brazil, host of the G20 Summit has spearheaded a global initiative with the UN , aiming to counter misinformation and disinformation that hinder climate action. This initiative was officially announced at the G20 Summit held on November 19th and 20th.
The US as the largest emitter in the world has the potential to be a powerful opposition to international efforts toward addressing climate change goals. One of its most effective weapons is misinformation.
As reported during COP27, held two years ago, climate scams began trending on X soon after Elon Musk took over that site (formerly Twitter), misinformation on the site worsened to the extent that early warning was distributed to COP29 attendees about the ubiquitous misinformation on X, particularly following the US election.
The president-elect's oddly assorted and inexperienced cabinet is armed with climate denial claims to further isolationist desires and the interests of powerful corporate interests.
In terms of the latter, IM InfluenceMap's corporate influence database claimed over 2,400 instances of anti-transition narratives promoted by more than 100 fossil fuel companies and industry association since the conclusion of COP28" (most attendees at COP29).
The bottom line is a cadre of climate deniers will run a government that by governmental changes in laws and public policies will deny any responsibility for climate change.
In terms of public engagement, why a nihilistic decay in relation to a very real existential threat to the whole of humanity and nature?
Like other countries, everyday people with lived in lives in the US see the evidence of climate change right before their eyes and yet appear to accept it as though they have no recourse. Why?
The US is already one of the worst hotbeds for misinformation and climate denial. The public has been and continues to be misled by misinformation and disinformation.
Lack of trust in government and in science has made the country ripe for a social control that force feeds the increased production of fossil fuels and decreases opportunities for alternatives such as wind and power sources.
The price of ignorance, greatly thanks to misinformation and disinformation, is high both for climate deniers and for those who are not necessarily deniers, but are trapped by a need to feed their families with no greener job creation scheme in sight.
In the face of this, climate change is a threat to the daily life of every individual on earth. There is no safe place.
This dire message calls for enlightened self interest from the bottom up.
For example, Harjeet Sing with fossilfueltreaty.org spoke about his own backyard as a resident of New Delphi. He was asked in a Democracy Now interview why is situation in Delhi so bad. His answer was "It is our own creation" He said, "We are stuck with that system. Now we have a national emergency schools shut down because of pollution. This model has to be questioned. Fossil fuel development is at the heart of it all."
The price of ignorance is high for all individuals in all countries. Heavy emitters seem to prefer to pay for wars rather than humanity and nature. They assume that national boundaries hold power over climate change. Consequently, the person in New Delhi pulling a with the rickshaw while breathing in decades of anthropogenic emissions will pay a heavy price maybe not today, maybe in months, a year or several years.
There will be a price to pay.
A NEW STRUCTURE?
It had been clear to many veterans of the COPs that, despite accomplishments, the COPs were failing as a structure in terms of relevance to the realities of climate change. The COPs had also become increasingly vulnerable to a bias that favored rich countries and dismissed the poor.
In the case of the former there was a dimnishing chance that any remediation or carbon transfer could keep up with a significant increase in the production of gas and oil since the last COP28.
Greta Thunberg, who chose not attend COP29 posted on X, "The COP processes aren’t just failing us, they are part of a larger system built on injustice and designed to sacrifice current and future generations for the opportunity of a few to keep making unimaginable profits and continue to exploit planet and people."
So what does a new system; a more informed and contemporary structure, look like? It has been suggested that the COPs were important but the venue should be smaller and planned differently from the current geographical rotation that has allowed a succession of petro states.
Importantly, there is the question of a stronger foundation for COP processes. Scheduled directly following COP29, countries sought clarification from and for International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the responsibility of developed countries to vulnerable states. Written statements and oral presentations in this historic hearing might hold the true bones of a more effective structure for dealing with climate change.
Based on the presentations at the ICJ, the largest emitters wanted the safety of sticking with the current climate finance arrangements on a largely voluntary basis. However, the vast majority of the states suffering the effects of climate change stated that a more effective structure for climate change actions stemming from the Paris Agreement, while preserving its integrity, is better encompassed in customary international laws, international human rights laws. the law of the seas, and other international laws and treaties.
In regard to the elephant in the room, in terms of the existential crisis of climate change, the louder voices coming from stronger alliances and coalitional efforts among countries could possibly provide an opening that would deal more effectively deal with wrongful acts by those states most responsible for emissions, that continue to increase the production of large emissions and refuse to practice due diligence.
The ICJ holds no enforcement power and yet a majority of countries have testified anyway under questions of fairness and justice. In other words, there are forces at play. For instance, changing climate change dangers might also play a role in terms of legal remedies in terms of enough is enough.
Whatever the case, the tension between collective actions and sovereignty issues will continue to be a challenge. Still, underlying it all, even as alliances and broader coalitions form on the ground, it is inevitable that sooner or later the disorder of climate change will bring a new world order.
Meanwhile, at COP29 outside the forbidden zones the "beggars" were angry and determined creditors. They had to operate with yet another oppressive regimen under conditions that had only become worse with recent COPs. They had to face the reality of little or no transparency at COP29 and too few resources to combat climate change.
The next stop will be COP30 held by Brazil, with a significant oil economy, but also, perhaps, a more enlightened leader who might possibly recognize that in terms of redefining a COP structure the seriously threatened Amazon belongs to the world, rather than a single nation.