REM: COP29 ends in failure

After what was supposed to be a pivotal UN climate summit and probably the last chance to avoid an environmental disaster, the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan ended on November 23 in failure. Despite calls to raise financial aid to developing countries from $100bn to $1 trillion, delegates voted through a mere $300bn of help.

“I regret to say that this document is nothing more than an optical illusion,” Indian delegation representative Chandni Raina told the closing session of the summit, minutes after the deal was agreed. “This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face. Therefore we oppose the adoption of this document.”

United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged the negotiations were difficult, but cheered the fact a deal was done, calling it an “insurance policy for humanity against global warming.”

However, he went on to suggest that actually getting the money to the Global South recipients was not a done deal, pointing out that insurance policies only work if “all the premiums are paid and on time.”

The event got off to a bad start when delegates held an all-night session, just trying to agree on the agenda. While there has been good progress on the roll-out of solar generation capacity in the last year, after falling costs have made solar the cheapest source of power available to emerging markets, the surge in capacity is still less than the trebling of installed capacity called for at last year’s COP28.

The event was also marred by the fact that the fourth largest delegation at the event in terms of headcount was energy sector lobbyists that were working hard to derail discussions on reducing the burning of fossil fuels – apparently with some success.

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