By Ishaan Tharoor with Kelsey Baker, Washington Post
Even before the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House, global climate action was in a tricky spot. Major gaps exist between countries in the developed and developing world over how to collectively bring down emissions, mitigate the calamitous effects posed by a warming planet and fund these efforts. Within some Western democracies, there’s a growing backlash to green policies, with voters resenting onerous carbon taxes, the loss of fuel subsidies and the prospect of stricter environmental regulations that raise household costs.
All the while, the planetary warnings are blaring at full pitch. Scientists expect this year to be the hottest on record, supplanting 2023, the titleholder. “It will also probably be the first full calendar year when temperatures rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average — a critical line signaling that Earth is crossing into territory where some extreme climate effects may be irreversible,” noted my colleague Kasha Patel.
World leaders, activists, policymakers and corporate executives are in Baku, capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan, for the annual U.N.-backed climate conference. The two-week mega-summit, dubbed COP29, opened Monday, but many prominent heads of state, including President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, have skipped it. (For some, the session of the Group of 20 major economies in Brazil takes precedence.)
COP29 is not going smoothly. Inside, attendees vent their frustration with the slow pace of negotiations over a new deal intended to raise $1 trillion in climate financing for poorer nations. Outside, campaigners lament the presence of more than 1,700 lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said it was “beyond absurd” that such a critical meeting was being hosted by “an authoritarian petrostate.” But that’s now par for the course for the COPs — the previous two summits were held in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
And then there’s the shadow of Trump.
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