It is a sign of the times that the world, as weary of war and beset by political upheavals in the unique year of elections that 2024 it has been, seems quite prepared to pay less attention to the existential crisis for humankind posed by climate change-induced global warming,
Given the absence in Baku of world leaders with greater star appeal than many of their contemporaries, the principal focus of the COP29, which is climate finance, might not get the attention it deserves.
The choice of host Azerbaijan, whose President insists that such natural resources as oil and gas are God’s gifts and are meant to be used by mankind, appears strange in a year that is already set to be the hottest ever on record.
Decades of meetings over the need for climate action have never denied the science that warns of the natural catastrophes that keep occurring on the planet, with the flooding in the region around Valencia in Spain causing damage to the tune of 30 billion euro being the latest example of how extreme weather events are shaping up so frequently and hitting rich nations and poor.
The latest exercise to find the finance for climate mitigation by old and new polluters might find the problem of gathering money even harder as the top leaders of the 13 largest carbon dioxide-polluting countries are, for various reasons, not even in the country on the Caspian Sea.
As much as this finding of funds is riddled with reluctance on the part of the most industrialised nations who are the oldest culprits of carbon emissions, to fork out to save the planet is also symptomatic of the lack of will to act on the part of world leaders.
Considering that the elephant in the room is the prospective President of the United States who is a climate change denier, the chances of getting pledged for funds anywhere near $1 to 1.3 trillion per year being sought appear to be so dim that COP29 might be more like a cop out.
The old polluters will not pay generously for mitigation and the two most populous nations, citing development needs, won’t stop burning coal. That would leave a planet even more vulnerable than it is in the hottest decade in history.
