It is indeed ironical the UN Climate Conference, also known as the Conference of Parties (COP), chooses to hold their jamborees in capitals that are the hub of fossil fuel interests. The World, desperately fighting Climate Change and global warming, held its 200-nation gathering in December 2023 in Dubai; and now COP29 has just concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan – the oldest oil exploration town existing since 1840!
The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, opened COP29 on 11 November, embarrassingly referring to the country’s oil wealth as “the gift of God” to his people. What could he say? Oil represents 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports.
It was billed as a ‘finance conference’. The focus of the summit this year was to get the developed world to agree to a new target of funding pegged at $1.3 trillion a year. It was to help the poorer nations to move away from fossil fuels and to repair the climate change havoc wrought on communities around the world.
There’s been a history of skirmishing between the rich and poor nations on who will pay for the environmental damage. With much back-and-forth, a deal was finally reached in 2009 at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen when the rich nations agreed to raise $100 billion by 2020.
Expectedly, the developed world reneged from its commitments, and it was only in 2022 that the target was met when funding touched $106 billion. Much of this was disguised low-interest loans, something the poor nations had not bargained for.
Poor compromise
The Baku conference seemed doomed from the start. The demand for $1.3 trillion a year by the Global South was met with derision by the rich nations. At one point, representatives for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) walked out of the summit, after dismissing an offer of $250bn from richer countries. It seemed the climate catastrophe was not registering. Tuvalu, a small south Pacific island nation, was facing submergence with rising tides, but who cares?
In this melee of spats and protests, by 24 November, when the conference was supposed to close, there was no agreement. The differences were so sharp that Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan environment minister, also president of the Conference, had two speeches in hand when he walked up for his closing remarks. But the rich nations, with a push from China and India, finally delivered. The gavel came down with the adoption of the rich nations’ proposal to raise $300 billion a year by 2035.
It was a bitter compromise for the poor nations. Most environmental groups said it would have been better not to have any deal at all; but a deal is always better than no deal, as it let’s one build on it.
India and China
India led the developing countries at COP29, and continued to reiterate the demand for raising funding to $1.3 trillion a year. When the gavel came down on $300 billion, India’s delegate Chandni Raina, in a fierce speech called the deal “paltry” and “nothing more than an optical illusion”, and unable to “address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”
However, as the world’s third biggest emitter and fifth biggest economy, India has been caught in a cleft between advocating renewable energy and continuing a legacy of electricity generation that relies heavily on coal power plants. India generates 80% of its electricity from coal-fired plants, and it is rising. In January 2024, coal-fired electricity generation in India reached a record high of 115 terawatt hours (TWh), a 10% increase from the same month in 2023.
This was reflected in India’s ambivalence at COP29 – fierce public opposition to the final deal, but not pressing too many objections in the intervening days at the conference. India was keen for a deal as climate finance could bolster its transition to a cleaner economy. In the process, though it slammed the “paltry” $300 billion, it did not veto the deal; and left itself enough elbow room to deliver a censure.
As climate action shifts to Belem, Brazil for COP30, the climate clock has been sent into reverse gear with the rejection of the clause on “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in the final communique at Baku. The adoption of the clause was a major achievement at Dubai’s COP28 last year; but Saudi Arabia and other oil producers seemed to have the last laugh at Baku. This comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration is about to take guard. Trump, in his last round as President, had made no bones about exiting the Paris Climate talks.
While we wait to see whether the new US President will make good his threat, there is already a vacuum in the Climate Change leadership; and one can see China gearing up to fill the space. China is now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the second-largest economy. It also sees a market opportunity in providing green technology, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and EVs.
Finally, if the target for funding the rollback of Climate Change has to be reached, who and how contributes the money will have to be redefined. For instance, why should nations like Saudi Arabia and China not be included among the developed nations who have benefitted from fossil fuels? Similarly, corporations, who continue to make a killing on selling dirty fuel and technology, must also be severely taxed.