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This is article is taken from the latest edition of Temperature Check, The Journal’s climate newsletter, which is sending special extra editions covering COP29 in Azerbaijan. To receive Temperature Check to your inbox, sign up in the box at the end of this article.
Global warming isn’t going to pause and wait for other crises to be resolved first.
That was a message expressed by President of Moldova Maia Sandu delivering her country’s national statement at the World Leaders Summit portion of COP29 this afternoon. They were apt words given that many (though not, it has to be said, all) of the presidents and prime ministers who are not attending the conference this year are doing so because domestic political issues have been given precedence over the climate talks.
I was listening to the speeches today (only a few of them from the plenary, though. Most I had to watch via a livestream from the media centre because of extremely limited access allowed to journalists to the plenary hall – more on that in a bit.)
The opening of the segment was attended by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. I was on my way to meet an interviewee at the time when a stream of his speech playing on a screen caught my attention. He was talking about “fake news media” and claiming that an orchestrated campaign had been launched against Azerbaijan since it had won the vote for this year’s COP presidency. He ended his remarks by talking about the tens of thousands of people attending the COP (possibly the second most-attended ever, but interestingly, the first in seven years not to be larger than the one before it) and remarking, as what was clearly intended as a ‘gotcha’ moment: “So – the world gathered in Baku and we say to the world, welcome to Azerbaijan.”
If you listen back to this speech or read my report about it on The Journal, you’ll hear more of what he said, like how he believes Azerbaijan should “not be blamed” for selling oil and gas and that the world should be “realistic” about the prospects of fully transitioning to renewable energy.This is despite climate scientists from around the world agreeing that rapidly phasing out fossil fuels is essential to stop climate change from further escalating.
This is The Journal’s fourth year covering the important COP climate conference in person, a sign of our commitment to keep a sharp focus on one of the key challenges facing our world. It’s a commitment that costs time and financial resources to fund but we think it’s worth it. If you think it is important too, please support our readers’ contribution fund here.
Many leaders’ speeches made impassioned arguments for why the world needs to step up its game.
President Dr Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands talked about how “as one of the most vulnerable countries on the planet, everything about our lives will change”.
Addressing the disagreements about how to reach a new target for climate finance, she said that countries like the Marshall Islands cannot fight climate change by “cobbling together” disparate project-based finance, and that effective climate finance is not loans and “not finance that funds fossil fuel production”.
She talked about the need to move beyond “institutional architecture that holds us in the past and reproduces inequities”, adding: “Climate change threatens human rights… Women and children will suffer the most if we fail to stay within 1.5 degrees and to adapt.”
President of the European Council Charles Michel, though, made an appeal for a climate finance structure that would be vastly different from the one that the Marshall Islands and many other developing or small island countries are calling for. The EU and most wealthy countries want public grants to be heavily supplemented by private finance and loans.
Michel also called on the G77 bloc of countries to “step up to the plate” to join the contributor base putting money into climate finance – another sticking point in negotiations.
A couple of other moments that stood out to me:
As I said, though, I had to watch most of these on a livestream from the media centre in the conference venue instead of in the plenary hall. Access for journalists was being strictly limited. Except for a small number of broadcasters, members of the press weren’t being easily allowed in and out to watch multiple speeches (which was happening last year at COP28).
Instead, journalists had to present themselves to staff at the door of the plenary, state a specific country whose statement they wanted to hear, and wait to be escorted in to watch the speech before being immediately escorted back out afterwards. I was told not to come back a second time - one speech only.
The system was complicated further by the fact that there’s an order of speakers but no times given for when each is expected to speak, and the running order underwent a series of changes, meaning it was no easy feat to try to make sure you were in the right place and the right time for the speech they would allow you in to see.
A very unusual set-up for media access to an event. There was no lack of space, either – there were rows of empty chairs available at the back while I was in the hall.
Now, the World Leaders Summit is all well and good, but it’s not actually where the action happens. Behind closed doors, there’s already been some movement on one of the more technical issues up for discussion at this COP.
Progress was made yesterday (perhaps too quickly, some critics have said) on standards for global trading of ‘carbon credits’, which effectively allow one country to pay towards mitigation measures in another and then count the emissions reductions for its own targets. (If you see something being discussed called Article 6.4, this is what it’s about.)
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, also the Lead Negotiator on the COP29 Presidency team, called carbon credits “a game-changing tool to direct resources to the developing world”.
That’s not the position, though, of some observers on the ground, who take issue with not just the hasty adoption of the new rules but the flawed implementation of existing carbon credit systems.
350.org Latin America and Caribbean Director Ilan Zugman said in a statement that it sends a “bad signal to open COP29 by legitimising carbon markets as a solution to climate change”.
“They are not – they will increase inequalities, infringe on human rights, and hinder real climate action. In adopting Article 6.4, the COP presidency is setting the tone for the remainder of the climate talks and confusing ‘climate finance’ with ‘markets’,” Zugman said.
“COP29 is and should remain a finance COP, not a ‘markets’ COP. Countries affected by the climate crisis desperately need real money.
“The real win for this COP will be in securing 1 trillion a year in grants, not bonds, nor fake offset mechanisms that are a thinly veiled excuse for the world’s biggest polluters to pretend they’re paying their share.”
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