Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate Action, said he was satisfied with the outcome of Cop29 in Baku. The satisfaction concerns the agreement reached in extremis on the payment of 300 billion dollars per year by 2035, in favor of developing countries to improve their economies. The EU's judgment has an important relevance for the amount of interests that Europe has in those countries, for gas and oil imports, for rare earths, for agriculture, for political relations in the Mediterranean area. But Cop 29 was a very painful Conference with the delegations filing the documents until the end, at risk of failure. The president of the assembly Mukhtar Babayev exorcised the flop behind the increase in economic aid that will unfold over the next nine years. A not short time, on which weighs the speed of technological changes, a large flow of money and the contradictions of politics. Starting with those of the second country in the world for CO2 emissions, which in six weeks will be led by a President who denies any change in climate.
Disappointment in Africa
The money was once again the essence of the COP organized by the United Nations. The most significant bitterness for those who imagined a turning point was the severe reduction in the hoped-for aid, which went from 1300 billionof dollars to the final 300. There are those who have put a good face on a bad game, but that undeveloped countries will do without coal, oil and gas in their economies in less than ten years is pure theory. After all, it all took place in the capital of a country among the main gas exporters. In the two weeks of discussions in Baku, the victory of Donald Trump in the American elections had its hidden weight, as did China's political "distance" from climate objectives. For all this to make sense, we should understand who is still convinced of the containment of the planet's temperature. For many political elites, environmental and meteorological sciences should be put in the refrigerator and in Baku they argued about practically everything. A depressing spectacle, compared to the technological and scientific synthesis that must be found to outline a satisfactory framework for a fair transition.
The UN's next steps
At the Conference, “regarding the global balance at 1,5 degrees, it is disappointing,” said the Kingdom's Energy Minister, United Ed Miliband. In the end, the rich countries went home, carrying with them the accusation – not at all new – of having influenced the COP with their interests. Finance and banks remained on the sidelines, despite the continuous appeals by international organizations to increase funding for the green economy. What will the United Nations do now? How will they respond to those like Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, said the summit “was a disaster for the developing world. A failure for the people and the planet by rich countries who claim to take climate change seriously.” And how much, we ask, of the $300 billion will come from economies driven by coal, oil and gas? The world is very complicated indeed.
