The Baku convention center – Reuters
The applause exploded thunderously last December 12th in the Dubai convention center. After a night of interminable discussions, at 11.15 the following morning, almost twenty hours behind schedule, the “transition towards an exit from fossil fuels” had fully entered the binding commitments for the international community. In the 334 days that have passed since then, the world scenario has been filled with new and heavy shadows. The Middle Eastern war has passed its thirteenth monthee, the Lebanese front has been added to the Gaza front, while the clash with Iran has reached the maximum level of tension. The Ukrainian conflict, meanwhile, is approaching its third consecutive year. Under the weight of weapons, the climate dossier has ended up at the bottom of the agendas of international leaders.
Meanwhile, emissions reached a new record: 57.1 gigatons of greenhouse gases, +1.3 percent compared to the previous year. At this rate, temperatures will increase by 3.1 degrees by 2100, more than double the equilibrium threshold. Only a drastic change of pace can avoid “the burning of the planet”, to paraphrase Secretary General António Guterres. This is what the 197 member countries plus the EU of the UN Convention against Climate Change (UNFCCC) are called to do, who will meet in Baku, Azerbaigi from tomorrowan, for the 29th Conference of the Parties or COP29. The conditions, however, are far from favourable. The heads of state and government of the main economies have already given a lump sum. One after the other, the American Joe Biden, the leader of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declined the invitation, citing different reasons. The leaders of China, Japan, Australia and Mexico did the same. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is in doubt. Papua New Guinea withdrew in protest at the slow pace of negotiations. Intellectuals, especially French, promote the boycott against Ilham Aliyev’s Azerbaijani regime.
It is no secret, in any case, that, in general, Baku is considered a transition Cop in view of the 2025 appointment: the great Amazonian conference in Belém do Pará, which should inaugurate the five-year acceleration in the ecological transition. Lula had wanted it to mark the season of the deniers in power, first of all his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Now, Donald Trump’s return to the White House, five days before the Baku summit, shuffles the cards once again. «Precisely in this geopolitical phase – he underlines Alex Scott, climate diplomacy expert at Ecco – it is more important than ever to intensify the effort for COP29 to achieve its goals». First of all, the main objective of the Conference: to establish the amount of aid that the North of the world will have to provide to the South starting from 2026 to reduce emissions – mitigation – and minimize the impacts of global warming and adaptation. The New collective quantified goal – as it is called in technical jargon – will have to replace the current sum of 100 billion per year decided in 2009 for the five-year period 2020-2025. In reality – say the most accredited estimates – the figure was only reached in 2022 and, due to the lack of an effective monitoring system, a large part of the money arrived in the form of loans, increasing the burden of the debt. Or it didn’t go where it really needed to. Furthermore, the indicated quantity is already obsolete due to the worsening of the climate crisis. According to experts, it must be multiplied, at least, by five.
«But, in reality, we need a trillion dollars. This is not an unattainable goal, adding private funding to public funds. The point is the will”, concludes Alex Scott. I just don’t have a question of how much. The other crucial point is who will have to contribute: the old industrializing powers are pushing to include the emerging economies among the taxpayers, which resist. The negotiations, already delicate, therefore, will also have to move on the thin ridge between the need to stem overheating and the urgency of not digging a new furrow between the global North and South in a world disfigured by fractures.
