- It might sound like a cliché, but the fact of the matter is that all the talks, meets, summits, and congregations on the worsening climate situations around the world are not heading in the direction that would satisfy the proponents. The vagaries of the erratic weather patterns witnessed by the global community in the last few years are debilitating to several countries and highlight how much more should be achieved to ensure the situation does not go out of control. The resultant outcome of erratic weather patterns is that all can see unseasonal rains, snowfall, cloudbursts, floods, droughts, and famine occurring with alarming regularity. We know the rising temperatures courtesy of fossil fuel burnings are the primary reason for these occurrences.
PC: Freepik
- Humankind is made to face the consequences leading to the loss of innocent lives and properties that could have been avoided in the first place. Of course, efforts are afoot to address the mounting challenges on this front. It would be interesting to watch how the US President-elect Donald Trump would approach the topic in his second term. It is expected that Trump may not blow up climate talks altogether. But COP29’s goals are still nearly unachievable. As the annual UN climate summit, COP29 gathers in Baku, Azerbaijan, it faces a forbidding future. Trump, backed to the hilt by fossil fuel interests, will be back in the White House, which threatens a huge vibe-shift. He has indicated the US would again exit the Paris climate agreement.
- Note that climate finance is COP29’s main theme, where rich industrialized nations will have to up a new, bigger fund – a new collective quantified goal – to help developed and vulnerable nations transition away from fossil fuels and adapt to climate change. Given the US is both the richest country and the largest greenhouse gas emitter, this abdication of responsibility will certainly throw off negotiations. There’ll be an effort to draw in more nations to contribute funding, especially China and Gulf states, and resistance from those who don’t want to pay for a crisis they didn’t cause, and whose per capita emissions are still only a fraction of wealthy Western nations. Yes, more than half of all planned oil and gas expansion is set to come from five countries too.
PC: Euro News
- So geopolitical jockeying around justice, development, and debt will mark the Baku summit. It’s not all doom and darkness either. Trump has pulled this act before, without destroying the climate project altogether. Outside the COP framework, parallel commitments have been signed by the private sector, govts, and philanthropists. Renewable energy is cheaper than ever. Solar power costs have plunged by 90% in the last decade, and there’ve been dramatic improvements in battery storage and wind energy. China’s emissions are also projected to peak and decline before the decade ends. And yet, these advances are dwarfed by the scale of the challenge. This summit will reveal the extent to which a fractured world can get it together in the collective interest.
