As the satirical text by Francisco de Quevedo says: “A powerful knight is a gift of money. » It is precisely this subject that will be discussed at the COP29 climate summit, which opened this Thursday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. For two weeks, nearly 50,000 delegates will meet in Tierra del Fuego to negotiate the amount that Northern countries will pay to the so-called “Global South” to keep global warming below 1.5°C per year. focusing on the Paris Agreement signed in 2017. the French capital in 2015. An event that major world leaders will miss.
The only figure that comes up at summit after summit is that of the $100 billion annually needed to tackle the climate crisis. A figure which will not be reached before 2022 and which, according to experts, is largely achieved through loans. That is to say that the least developed countries, already in debt, are further fueling the fire of their battered public accounts to deal with a climate emergency of which they are the least guilty.
The debate on financing began at COP15 (Copenhagen). In 2009, countries finally agreed to finance the fight against climate change and mitigate its effects in the most vulnerable countries on the planet, that is to say the least developed.
The President of COP29, Azerbaijani Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev, assured in his opening speech that “we are in the race of our lives”. The Azerbaijani minister reiterated that current policies “will lead the world to a warming of more than three degrees on average.” Babayev recalled that the current drift in industrial policies of developed countries “will lead the world to a warming of more than three degrees on average, which will lead to catastrophic consequences.”
For his part, the UN Executive Secretary on Climate Change, Simon Stiell, stressed that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is “the only place we have to address the crisis climate change and hold each other accountable to act.” And we know that this process works, because without it, humanity would be heading toward five degrees of global warming.
Both leaders sent a clear message that “this is not an act of charity.” Babayev reiterated that “it is our moral duty and because our survival depends on it.” For his part, Stiell called for “putting aside” the idea that climate finance is charity.
The executive secretary explained that discussions held at any climate summit may seem far from reality, but in reality, it is the opposite. He also recalled that “no country is immune from this problem”.
Likewise, without referring to anything specific, he recalled that the climate crisis is costing thousands of lives: “Do you want your grocery and energy bills to increase even more? Do you want your country to become economically uncompetitive? “We really want even greater global instability, costing precious lives? Is this crisis affecting every individual in the world in one way or another,” he said.
This climate summit comes at a time when Spain is suffering the consequences of the DANA in Valencia, which affected more than thirty municipalities and cost the lives of more than 200 people. This is in addition to the torrential rains that Colombia has just suffered in recent days. President Gustavo Petro declared a “natural disaster” situation across the country due to the extreme weather phenomenon, after suspending his trip to Baku due to “climate collapse” in the South American country.
The COP29 President reiterated in his speech that “we are on the path to ruin”, specifically referring to DANA and other phenomena such as forest fires.
“If at least two-thirds of the world’s countries cannot afford to reduce their emissions quickly, then all countries will pay a brutal price,” Stiell said.
The shadow of Trump’s victory
Everyone knows the views of United States President-elect Donald Trump on climate change. The Republican said that in his first weeks in the White House, he was going to “drill, drill and drill.” The president-elect said this in reference to the extraction of oil and other fossil fuels, which are primarily responsible for global warming.
Likewise, he called climate change a “great hoax” and called the energy transition policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden, a “new green scam.” Trump’s record is clear. During his previous mandate (2016 to 2020), he withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement to continue producing fossil fuels.
From now on, things will be more difficult for the Republican. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) took effect in early March 2023 and was approved by both Democrats and Republicans. A huge million dollar plan for the renewable energy and auto industry. Many experts assure that the governors of many states can turn against them, since this law generates many jobs.
Since the implementation of the IRA, more than half of the projects have gone to purely Republican states like Texas, where they have continued to install renewable energy.
