The world's poorest countries say they need a trillion dollars a year to cut emissions and adapt to climate change. Photo: AFP / Alexander Nemenov
The first week of the global COP29 climate summit was remarkable for the wrong reasons, with the Azerbaijani president using his speech to praise fossil fuels as a "gift of god".
But with the second week now underway, a veteran New Zealand diplomat says the event is making constructive progress, including on carbon trading rules affecting New Zealand.
COP summits are the biggest annual meetings on any topic held by the United Nations.
Newsroom's Marc Daalder - a New Zealand journalist at the summit - says the Azerbaijani president's decision to praise fossil fuels and criticise "fake media" in the opening created a sense of whiplash, particularly as some observers expected him to unveil a new climate pledge instead.
"That was not the tone that a COP normally starts on, even at the UAE last year, which is a large producer of oil and gas, the focus was much more on transitioning [and] trying to put the best foot forward."
But Daalder says the unusual opening - and even news that climate change denier Donald Trump had been re-elected as US president - did not have as much impact on the topics being negotiated as people might have thought.
The main topic this year is finance. The world's poorest countries say they need a trillion dollars a year to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
But developed countries, including New Zealand, are feeling financially tight - and looking to the private sector and wealthier developing nations such as China to help.
Daalder said a lot of countries were waiting to see how much aid was available before setting their emissions-cutting targets for 2030 to 2035. An ambitious and achievable finance goal would be more likely to make them feel confident about making a strong pledge, he says.
Only the UK, Brazil and UAE have tabled their 2030-2035 targets - and only the UK's target was rated by analysts as being enough to keep the planet inside 1.5C heating. The deadline is February 2025, and New Zealand's pledge is unlikely to land much before the deadline, according to Climate Change Minister Simon Watts.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is promising to take on a leadership role in the absence of a strong US presence on climate action, albeit without naming the US directly, said Daalder.
Adding to the surreal vibe is the fact that Baku is the second summit in a row hosted by a petrostate, with a strong fossil fuel industry presence. The dissonance was only highlighted when the head of Exxon spoke and urged Donald Trump to stay in the Paris Agreement.
Flawed as the talks may be, global temperatures would be hotter without them, said Kay Harrison, a former climate change ambassador for New Zealand who is at the summit as a contractor to the COP presidency.
"I was actually surprised how little the US elections have really impacted or entered conversations here, I think that's because people are really conscious that elections don't change the science."
This year is focussed on getting a strong deal on finance, and countries like New Zealand would need to step up, she says, "how do you finance that [transition] in countries with coal fired power stations that have got 35 years left of life in them?"
New Zealand Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is in Baku now, coleading negotiations over the rulebook on international carbon trading, covering things like avoiding double-counting of emissions cuts between countries and allowing NGOs or indigenous groups to complain to a UN body if the projects aren't delivering the claimed climate benefits or infringe human rights
Harrison says negotiators have to rebuild trust in international carbon trading after a failure to set proper standards under the Kyoto Protocol.
Not only did countries sell junk credits under Kyoto, the construction of a hydro-electric dam built to generate carbon offsets in Guatemala led to the 2014 killing of indigenous protesters upset at being displaced by the dam.
"We're talking really serious consequences here for indigenous peoples, lives were lost, people were ripped off. That's probably one of the reasons its taken so long since Paris to get this mechanism right."
With current promises under the Paris Agreement putting the planet on track for 2.7C heating, leaders at the summit were warned that failing to cooperate to speed up climate efforts would have deadly consequences.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres told nations 2024 was almost certain to be the hottest year ever recorded and no country would be spared from hurricanes, hot seas, drought ravaged crops and more.
A January report by the World Economic Forum warned climate change could cause 14 million additional deaths in 2050, the majority of those from flooding.
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