At night the Baku Olympic Stadium shines, illuminated by LED walls. Between Lake Boyukshor and a major highway, the compound illuminates the entire neighborhood with repeating messages. “Solidarity for a green world”, “Act”. During the day, these slogans and many others can be read everywhere in the immense temporary facilities that host the 29th.my Climate Conference of the Parties (COP29). In most negotiating rooms, the reality of climate diplomacy is much less simple. And, day and night, discussions stall.
“Let’s stop the theater and get to work.implored, on Monday, November 18, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yes, there are headwinds, everyone knows it, but deploring them will not make them disappear. It’s time to focus on solutions. »
At the beginning of the second week, the atmosphere at COP29 oscillates between wait and see and anxiety about failure. On Monday, November 18, numerous ministers from 197 countries began to arrive at the site. It is up to them to begin unlocking the crucial theme of this COP29, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), that is, the new financing target that will be provided to developing countries to help them succeed in their climate transition.
During the technical discussions of the first week, the text went from nine to thirty-four pages and then was reduced again to twenty-five. There are still about fifty options to be decided and as many questions to be clarified. “As it stands, this text is going nowhere. “We lost seven days.”whispers a European negotiator.
The return of Trumpian climate skepticism
To try to find ways out of this document full of traps, political leaders will first have to deal with a tense geopolitical context. From the beginning, this United Nations conference, which takes place while several wars are being fought (Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, etc.), has been affected by the criticism of the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliev, against Western countries, such as Argentine negotiators recalled from the beginning. its climate-skeptic president, Javier Milei, and, above all, by the turbulence of Donald Trump’s election.
Very far from Baku, the future American president, who wants to once again disengage his country from climate diplomacy, was seen, on Saturday afternoon, during a fight organized by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, at Madison Square Garden in New York, in a deep discussion. with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, president of the Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco. “If you look at the geopolitical context, which is on everyone’s mind, things are very difficultsummarized, on Monday, November 18, Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate Action. Despite this, we can and must achieve a good result in the end. »
You have 55.98% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
