COP29 Begins With Climate Finance, Absent Leaders, and Trump Looming Large

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

$1 trillion a year in climate finance—that’s the goal. Getting a commitment of this size will be the measure of success of this year’s UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, COP29, which is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

At these conferences, held every 12 months, everyone has a microphone—small islands with 10,000 inhabitants sit next to the giant countries of the world as they try to make decisions on how to curb climate change and its impacts.

The meeting kicks off today with a plenary, and tomorrow will hear from heads of state and their environment ministers. They will then make way for the negotiators and so-called sherpas: the people who prepare the text of the conference’s decisions.

To avoid stalemate, these final decisions are approved by consensus rather than voted on; approval is obtained in the absence of overt objections, though the decisions’ text may be repeatedly amended in order to reach an agreement. Here’s what to look out for.

What’s on the Agenda?

In Baku, the first city in the world to commercially exploit oil, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance is being shaped.

In Copenhagen in 2009, industrialized countries agreed to provide $100 billion of climate finance each year to developing countries, to help them with their climate actions (though this target was achieved for the first time only in 2022). Then, in Paris in 2015, countries agreed that a new, larger target should be set for helping developing countries from 2025 onward. And so the NCQG was born.

At COP29, countries will attempt to agree on what the new, higher annual climate finance target of the NCQG should be, with some arguing that the figure should run into the trillions. Countries also need to decide what kind of finance to include—grants, loans, and investments are all options—as well as the allocation of funds: what proportion should go toward mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage. And then there are other factors to consider: Will the private sector contribute? And when should the target be reached? The years 2030 and 2035 represent very different options. Not to mention the weight of inflation.

And then, the main dilemma: Who has to take responsibility for what? The so-called global south is pressing for money to tread a path from developed countries to those left behind, who have not played a historical role in the climate crisis. The industrialized world, on the other hand, demands commitments on decarbonization from developing nations, partly as a matter of safeguarding industrial and technological competitiveness.

Complicating the matter is the position of China, which accounts for one-third of global emissions, more than any other country. Despite this, it is still considered by the UN to be on the road to development, meaning it is not formally bound to the same economic commitments as the world’s historical big polluters. However, Beijing might choose to make bold commitments to increase its international prestige.

Who’s There—and Who’s Missing?

Delegations from nearly 200 countries have come to Baku. Among the first to arrive, having traveled last week, was the American one.

However, the outgoing US president Joe Biden is not expected at the summit. Also absent is Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, who is busy with the formation of the new EC in early December; in her place is the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, who enjoys a reputation as an excellent diplomat. Brussels’ negotiating position has been affected by the impact of the tragic flooding in Valencia, Spain, in recent weeks, with this signaling the need to devote more resources to climate adaptation.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is embroiled in a government crisis, will be absent. So too will French president Emmanuel Macron, due to disagreements with Baku over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict involving Azerbaijan and Armenia. Along with him, most French NGOs will not take part.

Also staying home are Chinese president Xi Jinping, who will dispatch new climate envoy Liu Zhenmin; Russian president Vladimir Putin; and Brazilian president Lula, who is replaced by environment minister Marina Silva. The leaders of Japan, Australia (another major polluter), and Mexico also won’t be there.

Making waves is the decision by Papua New Guinea—one of the countries most affected by climate change—to boycott COP29. “All the big emitters around the world are promising millions of dollars to help fight climate change,” PNG foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko has said. “But already I can tell you that everything will then be handed over to consultants, who will ask the countries in question not to go overboard.”

What Impact Will the US Election Have?

The elephant in the room is Donald Trump’s recent victory. Back in 2016, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, which set the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius; Joe Biden then rejoined the climate compact as soon as he arrived in the White House.

The problem is that the intentions of Trump remain difficult to interpret. Trump has signaled his desire to once again withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and also to exit the UN convention that oversees the COPs, “a move that would result in Washington not even participating at the negotiating tables as an observer,” says Jacopo Bencini, a researcher at the Carbon Markets Hub at the European University Institute in Florence.

“Of the three big global climate players, only two might remain in play—the European Union and China—whose relations are shaken by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Bencini says. “The US is inevitably a heavy player on climate, both because of historical emissions and current extraction policies; investment, with Trump, will restart. Of course, the US has never admitted historical responsibility for emissions, but having them onboard in negotiations encourages the search for alternative solutions.”

And Bencini worries that the knock-on effects of Trump’s election could be greater this time than in 2016. “The shock this year is less than in 2016, when Trump’s election was unexpected: Then the US private sector and other state governments rushed to mark their difference from the new president. The future? I think the private sector will continue to support the transition, but not with the same inspiration.”

Chiara Martinelli, president of Climate Action Network Europe, a network of more than 180 NGOs, is more optimistic. “The catalyst for achieving the climate finance goal is the relationship between Europe and China. The truth is that both with Harris, had she won, and with Trump, the European Union could not expect the United States to lead the change,” she says.

Luca Bergamaschi, director of Ecco, an Italian climate think tank, agrees that the actions of the EU and China will be vital. “The question is whether the EU and China, along with developing countries, will be able to organize over the next four years to find financing and reduce emissions apart from the US,” he says. “Next year at COP30, the states will have to present new commitments to decarbonization, and it will be important to see how much the Chinese will want to show the world that they are different from the US with an increase in ambition.”