The 29th United Nations climate conference gets under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.
This year’s meeting will revolve around efforts to stump up the funds needed to cut pollution and adapt to more violent weather. Rich countries missed a goal to get poor countries $100 billion a year in climate finance from 2020, a target set in a previous Cop that experts deemed weak and patchy.
Poor countries are now pushing for $1tr a year by 2030 – including cash to fix the destruction caused by extreme weather – but rich countries are reluctant to go higher unless the pool of contributors grows larger.
More than 32,000 participants have registered for the conference. Several prominent world leaders are skipping the summit and sending deputies instead – including the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, the US’s Joe Biden, China’s Xi Jinping and Germany’s Olaf Scholz.
The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) is the premier global climate summit organized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The COP29 summit has been mired in controversy since Azerbaijan was announced as host at last year’s COP28 summit hosted in the UAE – making Azerbaijan the second petro-dictatorship with an egregious human rights record to host the conference in a row. Azerbaijan is one of the most fossil fuel-dependent economies in the world, with oil and gas comprising up to 90 percent of its exports and providing 60 percent of the government’s budget.
Baku was only granted the privilege of hosting COP29 after Armenia dropped its veto in exchange for the release of 32 Armenian POWs. To date, Azerbaijan continues to arbitrarily detain at least two dozen known Armenian prisoners of war and political prisoners – with many still unaccounted for, given Azerbaijan’s refusal to acknowledge or confirm their status.
COP29 has been marred by scandals. A secret recording last week appeared to show the Cop29 CEO agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals.
