The final declarations of COP 29, the United Nations conference on climate change, and the G20 economic summit were deemed disappointing by many countries and observers. At a time when the climate has never been as hot as it will be in 2024, when the economy is sluggish and the planet is reeling from the Russian-Ukrainian and Gaza-Israel conflicts, these exchanges failed to produce any truly constructive progress.
Mountains give birth to mice.
The COP29 and G20 meetings held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 24, and the second in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 18 and 19, will not go down in history.
Their conclusions seemed all the more inappropriate given that, on the one hand, the Ukraine-Russia and Gaza-Israel wars are getting bogged down, with the risk of degenerating into global conflict; on the other hand, the global economy is in very poor shape; and finally, the climatic context broke a sad record in 2024. It was the hottest year on record, with temperatures at least 1.5° higher than the pre-industrial average.
This led to a series of cataclysms on every continent, including terrible fires in California (USA), heat waves and typhoons in Asia (Taiwan, Philippines…), and terrible floods in Africa (Nigeria) and Europe (Valencia, Spain).
Despite the emergency context, it was a difficult birth for the 197 countries gathered at COP29. The 29th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference had to play overtime from Saturday 23rd to Sunday 24th. And it was only during the night that an agreement was reached.
A baby that left many disappointed
“No country got everything it wanted, and we’re leaving Baku with a mountain of work to do. So now is not the time to claim victory”, said Simon Stiell, head of UN Climate, summing up the feelings of many.
As ever, money was the sinews of war. The tug-of-war at COP29 centered on the amount of money to be given to developing countries by the European Union and the 23 developed countries (European Union, Great Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, etc.). The latter were the historical culprits of climate change at the first COP, held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992.
The final document of COP29 calls for the richest countries to devote at least “$300 billion a year by 2035”, in the form of loans and grants, to help developing countries cope with climate upheaval.
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