COP29 Results Demonstrate The Divide Between Have And Have-Not Nations

The final communiqués are written and posted for the COP29 meeting that just finished in Baku, Azerbaijan today. From its controversial choice as a host country for a meeting on climate change considering it is a petrostate, the results at Azerbaijan have been wanting in many ways. Some attendees concluded that the COP annual ritual is no longer proving to be of value. Others called for its wholesale reform and repurposing.

One thing is certain. COP29 didn’t solve the problems left to resolve from the previous event held in the United Arab Emirates, another petrostate last year. Maybe having petrostates host COP events is an absurdity in itself. The explanation for Azerbaijan as COP host noted the regional rotation that the United Nations has been using which put this year’s event in an Eastern European or West Asian locale. Eastern European members voted with Russia blocking countries supporting Ukraine. The choice ended up being Azerbaijan, a country known to export more than 90% of its oil and gas and described as using its income from fossil fuels to fund a renewable energy and economic diversification strategy to achieve net zero by 2050.

Azerbaijan is a quarter-century from that milestone which will coincide with the country running out of its existing fossil fuel reserves. Meanwhile, it will continue to contribute greenhouse gasses to a warming atmosphere. Ending its petrostate legacy by mid-century like so many other oil and gas-producing nations will not mitigate climate change fast enough to stop the planet from surpassing the 1.5 Celsius lower target established by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

What Got Done At COP29?

Five results or lack thereof have come out of Baku and include:

1. A climate loss and damage fund originally set at the previous COP, was agreed to with US $300 billion to be dispensed from Developed World to Developing World nations beginning in 2025.
2.  An agreement to set standards for a global carbon trading market.
3. The beginning of a global roadmap for climate change adaptation.
4. Talks but no conclusions on the development of a mitigation work program to address what the stocktaking of carbon contributions indicates where the work is needed immediately and soon.
5. No agreement on rapid reductions and an industry phase-out of fossil-fuel emissions.

The $300 billion was far below the ask by Global South countries who wanted to see a number between $1 and 1.3 trillion, and a minimum threshold to claim success at $400 billion. That didn’t happen.

On the positive side, a mechanism for disbursement was established with the World Bank agreeing to run the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) for the next four years. The FRLD board will operate from The Philippines. Eligibility criteria are still being defined as are the procedures for disbursement of the money.

At the COP several Global North countries pledged $700 million to initially seed the FRLD. The job for its board will now involve getting the remainder of the $300 billion for 2025. So far, the world’s rich countries have been reluctant to depart with their money.

How COP Participants Aligned Themselves

Like everything within the United Nations, countries tend to gather into groupings based on common geography and aims. The geographical alignments that determine host COP nations are in blocks that include Asia-Pacific, African, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, Western European and Others (the latter includes Japan, Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.)

There are geopolitical blocks like The European Union and the organization of 22 Arab states.

Then there are policy negotiation blocks that bring nations together not necessarily sharing common geography. These include:

• The G-77 and China are a block of Developing World countries with China representing 80% of the global population.
• The LDC includes 46 of the Least Developed Countries that see themselves as most vulnerable to climate change and its environmental and economic shocks.
• AOSIS represents small island states whose contributions to global climate change are the least but who disproportionately are affected by global warming and sea level rise the most.
• The African Group represents all 54 African nations. Their focus is on getting the FRLD operational and a global carbon market established.
• The EIG is an environmental integrity group of countries from Europe, Asia and the Americas that formed in 2000 focused on mitigation ambitions and ensuring effective governance and transparency in climate commitments.
• The UG or Umbrella Group represents a coalition of non-EU nations including the United Kingdom formed at the time of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The UG is focused on establishing emissions reduction targets and transparent reporting.
• The CRF is a coalition of over 50 rainforest nations that have stewardship over the world’s rainforests.

Other groups with their own agendas include:

• BASIC Group (Brazil, South Africa, China India).
• Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA).
• Cartagena Dialogue, countries from Central Asia, the Caucasus, Albania and Moldova (CACAM).
• SUR (formerly known as ABU) is an alliance involving Latin American and Caribbean (AILAC) countries.
• LMDC is a coalition of Developing World nations with a G-77 overlap.
• Group of Mountain Partnership involves over 550 members including countries, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, and the private sector aimed at protecting mountain environments.

How COP29 Results Will Impact COP30

Every annual COP meeting that puts off tough global climate decisions adds more pressure to subsequent events. The low-ball amounts agreed to for the FRLD means funding at the next COP will need a rapid rise in financial commitments from the Developed World.

Global agreement to put a price on carbon pollution and develop a universal carbon market for governments and the private sector to purchase and trade carbon credits needs to be in place by COP30 or we risk giving polluters a free pass to continue to feed global warming.

Then there is the issue of 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists who showed up at COP29. Their presence undermined much of the event with lobbyists outnumbering many national delegations. Lobbyists introduced distractions and alternate agendas that included carbon capture and sequestration, transitional fuel strategies, nuclear power, cloud seeding and geoengineering. COP30 needs to ban them.

COP30 will be hosted in the Amazon in Belém, Pará, Brazil, from November 10 to 21, 2025. It will mark the first time an area of the planet that is most under threat acting as host. Participants will directly experience how the Amazon is changing because of the lack of prior action to combat climate change.