The low participation of the leaders of the nations that emit the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has marked the initial part of the climate summit, COP29, which this year is being held in the capital of Azerbaijan and which will take place between this Tuesday and this Wednesday welcomes the statements of some 80 heads of state. Furthermore, the fear of that is also very present. , Secretary General of the United Nations, opened the high-level segment of the summit this Tuesday. He has not mentioned the Republican in his speech before the plenary session, but he has left a message that could well be understood as a message for Trump: “The clean energy revolution is already here. No group, no company, no government can stop it.”
He has also defended how cheap solar and wind energy are, and has criticized the continued commitment to investing in fossil fuels, a speech that contrasts with that given by Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan since 2003. Al also presides over COP29 and will have to lead the negotiations, in which around two hundred countries participate. In his inaugural speech, Aliyev attacked the Western media, whom he accused of misinforming for criticizing his words and describing his country as a petrostate. He has launched a plea in defense of fossil fuels, the main economic engine of his country, which he has equated with clean energy sources. In his opinion, fossil fuels are a “gift from God,” as are all “natural resources,” and he has cited “oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper.” . “Countries should not feel guilty for having them,” he added, because “markets” and “people” need them. Although he has said he feels committed to the energy transition, he has advocated being “realistic”, thus linking with the narratives used by the most retarded sectors in the fight against climate change.
Guterres and Aliyev were in charge of opening this Tuesday the segment of the summit in which the leaders of the countries intervene. Around eighty leaders will attend Baku and speak this Tuesday and Wednesday. But the block of the planet’s six largest emitters (in this order China, the United States, India, the EU, Russia and Brazil) will practically not be represented. The Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and his counterparts from Italy and the United Kingdom, Giorgia Meloni and Keir Starmer, respectively, do attend. In addition, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will also speak, but not the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In the European bloc, the absences of the leaders of Germany and France stand out. And outside the EU, the casualties of the leaders of China (although Xi Jinping will send a message), the United States, India, Russia and Brazil are significant.
That their leaders do not attend these summits does not mean that they will not be active in the negotiations. In fact, these countries send large delegations that are usually led by ministers or special climate envoys. But the low profile of top-level leaders does give an idea of the loss of focus that the fight against climate change is suffering in a turbulent international panorama.
Guterres, who spoke after Aliyev, entered fully into . A new climate finance goal must be agreed upon, that is, the funds that must flow from countries with more resources to nations with less income so that they too can clean their energy systems of greenhouse gases and protect themselves from the impacts. increasing global warming. And faced with the multi-million dollar challenge that this represents, the search for new sources of financing beyond governments is gaining more and more strength. Guterres has advocated “taking advantage of innovative sources” and has given as an example “taxes on maritime transport, aviation and the extraction of fossil fuels.” “Polluters must pay,” he claimed.
If financing and this new objective to be applied from 2025 is the big issue of the more technical negotiations at COP29, the most political issue is undoubtedly . The US negotiating team that is present at this summit is still that of the outgoing Democratic administration, but no one is aware that Trump already pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement in his previous mandate and that the commitments made in Baku could be a dead letter for the new White House.
But Guterres insisted this Tuesday on the need to combat global warming caused by humans. “No country is spared,” he warned. The UN Secretary General has recalled that this crisis is unequal both when looking for the causes and when searching for those who suffer the most. “The rich cause the problem, the poor pay the highest price.” He alluded to a recent report that pointed out that “the richest billionaires emit more carbon dioxide in an hour and a half than the average person in their entire life.”
Climate finance
Guterres also denounced this Tuesday the problems suffered by developing countries that want to adapt and fight against warming, such as scarce financing and suffocating debt. “Last year, developing and emerging markets outside China received only 15 cents of every dollar invested in clean energy globally,” he explained.
That is why COP29 must “tear down the walls to climate finance.” “We need a new financial objective that lives up to the moment,” he stressed. The current climate financing objective was established at another summit, in 2009. It was agreed that starting in 2020, 100 billion dollars annually would be mobilized (with direct aid, credits and other types of tools) from developed countries to those considered developing. . Now Guterres, like many developing nations, speaks of the need for “public finances” to mobilize “the trillions of dollars that developing countries need.”
It is in this context that Guterres has opted for the establishment of new taxes on international aviation and maritime transport and on the extraction of fossil fuels. He has also spoken of the need to establish greater “transparency and accountability” so that developing countries have “confidence that the money will materialize.” Finally, he has demanded that multilateral banks be recapitalized so that they can provide more financing. “Climate finance is not charity, it is an investment.”
Although the Secretary General has painted a picture in which the advance of warming translates into hurricanes, floods and lost crops that cause famine, he has also spoken of some reasons for hope. For example, the advance in renewables, called to displace the main causes of the problem: fossil fuels. “Almost everywhere, solar and wind energy are the cheapest sources” when it comes to installing new sources of electricity.
Proponents of this new market argue that it will constitute the gold standard for emissions trading, freeing up billions of dollars in financing for emissions mitigation projects in the developing world. Buyers, mostly from richer countries, could meet their climate goals by buying credits from projects that reduce pollution.
