What is COP29? Where is it?

World leaders will attend a major annual United Nations climate change conference in hopes of curbing rising global temperatures, which are exacerbating deadly events like the recent Spanish floods. is.

The main aim of this year’s conference in Azerbaijan is to agree on how to provide poorer countries with more cash to help curb greenhouse gases and deal with the growing effects of climate change. .

But some key leaders will not attend, with the victory of climate change skeptic Donald Trump, war and the cost-of-living crisis proving to be a distraction.

Host country Azerbaijan has also come under intense scrutiny for its human rights record, with accusations that the conference is being used to engineer fossil fuel deals.

COP29 is the world’s most important conference on climate change. Led by the United Nations, this year’s 29th event will be held from November 11th to 22nd. It will be held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a country in Central Asia located between Russia and Iran.

COP is an abbreviation for “Conference of the Parties,” and in this case, a party is a country that has ratified the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

This document was signed in 1992 by approximately 200 countries. The COP is the agreement’s decision-making body, where representatives from these countries meet annually to negotiate the best approach to tackling the root causes of climate change.

The president or prime minister is usually present at the beginning of these meetings to provide impetus. But this year, the leaders of some of the biggest economies and biggest carbon emitters are conspicuously absent. U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s Olaf Schulz and India’s Narendra Modi. absent.

They’re holding back for a variety of reasons, but that doesn’t help the conference get off to a strong start. The leaders in attendance will have many other issues in mind, including two costly and difficult wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and global financial issues.

“No world leader comes to us with climate change at the top of their inbox,” explains Professor Thomas Hale of the University of Oxford.

There is also an underlying feeling that Azerbaijan lacks the diplomatic or financial clout to secure a significant agreement in Baku.

Many leaders take the view that progress is likely to be made at COP30, to be held in Brazil next year.

The key issue this year is money.

Under the Paris Agreement signed in 2015, world leaders pledged to try to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. To this end, each country needs to strengthen its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.

As part of the agreement, each country committed to developing new financing targets for developing countries by 2025. The money will be used to help emerging countries reduce carbon dioxide and adapt to the worst effects of rising temperatures.

Their track record so far has been modest, so reaching agreement on new fiscal targets is seen as an important step in building trust between rich and poor countries.

African countries and small island states want total climate finance to exceed $1 trillion per year by 2030.

Until now, countries such as China and the Gulf countries were classified as developing countries and were exempted from contributions.

The EU and other rich countries say this needs to change if they want to increase the amount of cash they have.

Government plans to tackle climate change at home can also be difficult. You must update your action plan every five years (the next deadline is in February).

Some countries are expected to announce strategies at this COP, but if they are weak and unlikely to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees, it could create problems for countries on the front lines of climate change. There is sex.

And are the fossil fuel deals passed during the last climate negotiations still in place? This year’s G20 talks showed signs that some countries want to backtrack on their commitments to exit burning oil, coal and gas.

You don’t have to look far. You can see that there is a problem. The United Nations’ main talks on conservation collapsed in Colombia two weeks ago after countries failed to agree on key goals.

Azerbaijan has big plans to expand gas production by up to a third over the next 10 years. Some observers are concerned that a country with such a goal is in charge of a conference aimed at transitioning away from fossil fuels.

These fuels are one of the main causes of climate change because when burned for energy they release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that cause global warming.

There are also concerns that Azerbaijani authorities are using the climate change conference to promote investment in the country’s state-run oil and gas company, the BBC reported.

There are also deep concerns about holding this important event in a country where political opposition is not tolerated and human rights conditions are poor.

The US president-elect is known as an environmental skeptic who has called efforts to expand green energy a “fraud,” and climate experts see his victory as a major setback.

He will not actually attend COP29, and while President Biden’s team will facilitate progress, they know that what they agree on will not be binding on the new administration.

With the election of President Trump, the United States is likely to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and funding.

But Mr. Trump’s reelection could create a new sense of unity and build a coalition that could agree on big steps in funding for poor countries.

Experts say the climate crisis and our collective response to it will continue beyond President Trump’s second term.

This year, the climate warnings are stronger than ever.

The European Climate Agency predicts that 2024 is “almost certain” to be the hottest year on record, with intense heatwaves and deadly storms.

We also saw the effects of rising ocean temperatures in the summer, with extremely powerful hurricanes Helen and Milton hitting the United States. The devastating floods that killed at least 200 people in Spain in October were also caused by rising sea temperatures in the Mediterranean.

“Climate change is a cumulative problem. Every year of delay means we’re doing more to warm the planet. We need to act now.” Professor Joeli Logerge from Imperial College London explains.

In the short term, the COP agreement could change the way countries build their economies, including by boosting the development of green electricity. It can affect where we get our energy from and how much we pay for it on our bills.

It could also require countries to pay large sums of money into a fund for poor countries. In the UK this is currently funded from the taxpayer-paid aid budget, but private financial institutions are expected to make a significant contribution.

In the long term, the talks aim to build a safer and cleaner world for everyone and prevent the worst of climate change.