COP29 opens in Azerbaijan for talks centred on climate funding 

The annual United Nations climate summit has started in Azerbaijan, with countries readying for tough talks on finance and trade, following a year of weather disasters that have emboldened developing countries in their demands for more funds.

Starting Monday, delegates from nearly 200 countries will be at the two-week COP29 forum in the capital city of Baku for talks being held under the long shadow cast by the re-election of Donald Trump, who has threatened to roll back the United States’s carbon-cutting commitments.

In his opening speech, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said that world leaders must show that global cooperation “is not down for the count”.

“Here in Baku, we must agree a new global climate finance goal. If at least two thirds of the world’s nations cannot afford to cut emissions quickly, then every nation pays a brutal price,” he warned.

Stiell also appealed for an “ambitious” new goal on providing climate funding to the world’s poorer nations, saying: “Let’s dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity.”

In welcoming delegates, Azerbaijan’s Ecology Minister Mukhtar Babayev, who also serves as COP29 president, declared that “climate change is already here”.

“COP29 is the unmissable moment to chart a new path forward for everyone.”

The COP29 talks open amid new warnings that 2024 is on track to break temperature records, adding urgency to a fractious debate over climate funding as poorer countries seek an increase in the $100bn-a-year target at the forum.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Damilola Ogunbiyi, UN Special Representative on Sustainable Energy, said that one of her “key expectations is on the role of climate finance”.

“We have a record-breaking year of investments in clean renewable energy. However, only 15 percent of that goes to the global south,” she said.

Trump’s return also looms over the discussions, with fears that an imminent US departure from the landmark Paris Agreement to limit global warming could mean less ambition around the negotiating table.

“We cannot afford to let the momentum for global action on climate change be derailed,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment. “This is a shared problem that will not solve itself without international cooperation, and we will continue to make that case to the incoming president of one of the world’s largest polluters.”

Outgoing US President Joe Biden is staying away from the talks, as are many leaders who have traditionally appeared early in COP talks to lend weight to the proceedings. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is fighting a political crisis after the collapse of his ruling coalition, has also cancelled his trip to Baku.

Just a handful of leaders from the Group of 20, whose countries account for nearly 80 percent of global emissions, are attending.

Afghanistan will however be sending a delegation for the first time since the Taliban took power. They are expected to have an observer status.

Diplomats have insisted that the absences, and Trump’s win, will not detract from the serious work at hand, particularly agreeing on a new figure for climate funding to developing countries.

Host Azerbaijan will be tasked with keeping countries focused on agreeing to a new global finance target deal to replace the current $100bn pledge expiring this year. How much will be on offer, who will pay, and who can access the funds are some of the major points of contention.

“It’s hard. It involves money. When it comes to money, everybody shows their true colours,” Adonia Ayebare, the Ugandan chair of a bloc that groups more than 100 mostly developing countries and China, told the AFP news agency.

Ayebare brushed aside the potential consequences of a US withdrawal, noting that Trump already took Washington out of the Paris Agreement during his first term.

The talks also come with the latest warnings that the world is far off track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The climate deal commits to keep warming below 2C (3.6F) compared with pre-industrial levels, preferably below 1.5C (2.7F). But the world is on track to top that level in 2024, according to the European Union climate monitor.

Earlier this year, the UN warned the world is on track for a catastrophic 3.1C (5.58F) of warming this century based on current actions.