“Governments have retreated from even their legally binding promises to decarbonize, trusting markets to deliver comparatively meager emissions reductions instead, and activists have been unable to generate meaningful public outrage at the walkback.”

—David Wallace-Wells, New York Times

Oil and gas are a “gift of god,” declares UN COP29 climate summit host Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev, as thousands attend the conference in Baku, the capital, which was built on oil revenues. It appears that Canada believes the same.

It has just been revealed by Canada’s environmental law charity Ecojustice and environmental advocacy organization Environmental Defence that the emissions from the oil, gas and coal Canada exports are increasing at such a rate that they now vastly exceed its own domestic energy emissions. This makes a mockery of Canada’s proclamation at COP28 that it is a climate leader.

More than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists, including those pushing for controversial carbon capture and storage technology, swarmed COP29 as the Azerbaijan government welcomed the most powerful oil and gas CEOs. Joseph Sikulu, a member of the Pacific Climate Warriors and Pacific Director for climate campaign group 350.org, exclaimed, “How can we achieve the ambition that is needed to save our homes when these negotiations are continually flooded with fossil fuel lobbyists? There is a ban on tobacco lobbyists from attending the World Health Organization’s summit. Why is that not the case for the fossil fuel industry at COP? We demand that the upcoming COP presidencies set clear rules against the presence of fossil fuel interests at the negotiating table. Our lives depend on it.” https://tinyurl.com/cop-reform

An open letter on COP climate reforms, written by climate policy experts and climate scientists to the UN Secretary General and COP Executive Secretary, asks for a move away from endless negotiations to delivery of agreed-upon negotiations. Money allocated to compensate countries of the global south and aid them so that they can adapt and create a resilient response to ongoing climate catastrophes (loss and damage) must be honoured. Key reforms urged also include locking out fossil fuel lobbyists and countries that push for more fossil fuel expansion. https://www.clubofrome.org/cop-reform/

This is music to many people’s ears, as the present COP structure, which has never produced any transition away from fossil energies, has lost the confidence of so many people. No wonder the last three climate conferences have taken place in autocratic petrostates. The letter went on to say, “It is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose… We need a shift from negotiation to implementation. We need strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase-out/transition away from fossil energy. Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris agreement.” 

Since the level of atmospheric CO2 has increased 26% in the last 10 years, it would be reasonable to question whether the 29th UN climate talks—with more than 65,000 people registered— will make any difference. The presence of 1,700 fossil-fuel lobbyists doesn’t help!

The World Meteorological Organization declared recently that 2024 had shown a 1.5-degree Celsius (1.5C) temperature rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the intensive burning of fossil fuels. Although there are those who say that this increase in global temperature is not necessarily demonstrating that a 1.5C or more rise is here to stay, it is more than disconcerting that this spike in temperature came well before its predicted date. You may recall that the declarations pasted onto the Paris UN summit agreement in 2015 proclaimed a limit of 1.5C for this century as being the maximum acceptable. But the climate pledges already given would lead to a disastrous 2.1C rise. 

This is why the Open Letter to the UN is so important: it lays out a path away from endless negotiations and demands the keeping of the promises stated so jubilantly at the 2015 summit in Paris, which ranged from honouring pledges of financial support for countries in the global south to successfully keeping atmospheric temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius. As every part of the planet has now experienced climate emergencies, there should be an easy-to-make argument that the UN conference must be broken up into smaller working groups focused on climate justice and a swift transition away from fossil-fuel energy. 

But climate action at the COP is also endangered by far-right governments. Argentina is a case in point: under the instructions of its president, Javier Milei, it has given up participating in the COP29 dialogue. Its delegation unceremoniously left the UN Summit for the Future in September this year. This disdain and contempt for climate/biodiversity solutions will probably be matched by the incoming US administration’s climate denial disinformation. It is widely predicted that the US will depart from future climate summits. 

Last weekend there was a day of protest demanding climate justice at COP29. The negotiations have been going so slowly that people fear there will not be an increase in the billions of dollars needed each year to help developing countries cope with climate breakdown. “Activists from countries spanning the globe have assembled in a long line at COP29 with artwork and signs from throughout the conference, to show the connectedness of the climate crisis worldwide and urge world leaders to commit to a strong climate finance deal this year,” wrote Oxfam International. 

Speaking in Baku ahead of the latest G20 summit in Brazil, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called on wealthy countries to give climate funds and debt relief to the least prosperous and struggling countries, which need to adapt to a crisis that is not of their making. “The G20 was created to tackle problems that no one country, or group of countries, can tackle alone,” he stated. “On that basis, the global climate crisis should be order of business number one in Rio next week.” He also emphasised, “Bolder climate action is basic self-preservation for every G20 economy. Without rapid cuts in emissions, no G20 economy will be spared from climate-driven economic carnage… In turbulent times and a fracturing world, G20 leaders must signal loud and clear that international cooperation is still the best and only chance humanity must survive global heating. There is no other way.”

COP29 comes to an end on Friday November 22, the date this article is being published, so I will have more to report (hopefully some positive news) on the outcome of the conference in my next article, which also looks at the UN COP on desertification being held in Saudi Arabia from December 2 to 13.