Still on the brink. The anxiety that arises in the corridors of COP 29 is similar to the apathy that is generated in the world population when we know that the agreement will be last minute and minimal. It’s a classic. Reaching a minimum agreement that satisfies all parties is the basis of the climate consensus of recent years. The ambition is neither there nor expected.
Disappointment during these summits is a feeling that must be managed because it has become common. This does not mean that COPs are becoming less and less useless, but rather it shows the complexity of reaching an agreement between all countries, with their differences in development, economics, capacities, political and social. It is obligatory to sit them down face to face once a year and to confront each other.
On this occasion, the final agreement is based on the fact that developed countries agreed to “channel at least” 300 billion dollars per year to developing countries until 2035 to support their efforts to combat climate change. However, for developing countries, this does not represent progress and they have voiced their complaints. This led to a commitment to raise $1.3 trillion annually from a wide range of sources, including private investment, by 2035.
To put the stuntedness of this figure into perspective, according to Bloomberg NEF data, investment in new power grids in 2023 alone was $310 billion, China has invested $676 billion in decarbonization and the world has invested $1.8 trillion in 2023 in the energy transition. With the figure agreed at COP29, and taking into account that it is until 2035, we would be talking about 16% of what all countries have invested. It is ridiculous to try to equate economic and technological developments to stop the worst effects of climate change.
The new agreement is meant to help inform each country’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, as well as the next round of climate negotiations at COP30 in Brazil. Many developing countries have stressed that a lower-than-expected financial commitment would delay their transition to emissions-free energy and limit their ambition to set carbon emissions reduction targets due in February.
It should be noted, however, that developed countries are not exactly in a healthy financial situation, given the absence of China and the United States. There are currently some restrictions due to increased tax pressure, limited budgets in fragmented parliaments, policies threatened by increasing conservatism and negationism from far-right parties and, of course, galloping inflation . The shadow of Donald Trump’s election and his threat to withdraw the United States from the historic Paris climate agreement also loomed over Baku. They will lose their opportunity to lead, because the ecological transition is not negotiable and the only thing we can agree on and debate is the pace, which is more urgent every day.
But I don’t want to lose the main message of this article: stop focusing on how much and focus on where. What technologies are we investing in to accelerate the fight against climate change. Here I want to stop to highlight the error and delayed interests of some gas companies, as is the case of Naturgy in Spain. In this case, infer disadvantages to a technology such as the heat pump to promote and boost their activity with biogas. An absolute absurdity which goes against the scientific consensus and in favor of their interests, without denying the role of biogas.
Consequently, these 300 billion annual dollars must have a very strong component of adaptation and orientation, that is to say that the aid is previously programmed for the different tools or technologies most suited to the country or to the region where they are intended. Only in this way can we truly make progress in developing countries. If a country has greater geothermal or photovoltaic resources, most of the funding should be allocated to one technology or the other, emphasizing that in many cases the combination of the two is usually the right answer. There is no impartiality in the energy transition because we cannot waste and finance projects that do not correspond to the resources and demand available to the real population of a given region. And even less develop extractivist practices with private and public investments at the state level, in order to export any decarbonized final product. This is the reality in some cases.
An example to avoid is the Namibia project which will produce 2 million tonnes per year of green ammonia for regional and global markets. In addition to German companies, the Namibian government itself is participating in the financing. The plan involves building wind farms and photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of seven GW to produce green ammonia and export it more than 10,000 kilometers. This is all very sensible and reasonable.
In short, quantity is as crucial as how it is used to meet the most basic and urgent mitigation and adaptation needs of different countries. The technology is ready, without sounding like a techno-optimistic speech. All we have to do is link it to the social and economic needs of each region, this link being crucial for the agonizing commitments of the COP to be practical, tangible and improve the well-being of populations while stopping climate change.
