International Courant
The UN’s annual local weather summit is now underway within the Azerbaijani capital Baku, with 1000’s of world representatives gathering within the South Caucasus for 2 weeks of negotiations on tackling the local weather disaster.
However the world summit is overshadowed by the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the USA, who has expressed his intention to withdraw from the historic Paris Settlement for the second time. He can even possible reduce U.S. carbon discount commitments, that are key to the transition to a web zero local weather.
International locations have additionally didn’t agree on financing the inexperienced vitality transition and local weather change mitigation packages world wide.
Here is what you could know:
When and the place will the COP29 be held?
COP29 will happen from November 11 to 22 within the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.
The choice to host the summit in a rustic whose financial system relies on fossil fuels has been criticized by local weather activists, together with Greta Thunberg, who referred to as the occasion a “greenwash convention” throughout a latest lecture.
What does COP stand for?
COP is an abbreviation for Convention of the Events to the Conference, which refers back to the United Nations Framework Conference on Local weather Change (UNFCCC) – a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992.
The UNFCCC, which got here into drive in 1994, has change into a foundation for historic agreements such because the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Local weather Settlement (2015), which goals to restrict international temperature rise to 2 levels Celsius above pre -industrial degree by 2100.
The primary COP summit happened in 1995 within the German capital Berlin.
Pedestrians stroll in entrance of the venue of the COP29 summit in Baku on November 10, 2024, on the eve of the UN local weather convention (Alexander Nemenov/AFP)
Who will take part?
Greater than 32,000 individuals have registered to attend COP29 this 12 months.
They are going to embody representatives of all 198 nations which have ratified the treaty.
It should even be the primary time the Taliban have attended a UN local weather convention since taking up Afghanistan in 2021.
Diplomats, journalists, local weather scientists, NGOs, activists and indigenous leaders can even attend.
The Biden administration will ship a delegation together with officers from greater than two dozen U.S. departments, companies and organizations led by Senior Advisor to the President on Worldwide Local weather Coverage John Podesta.
The delegation will take part within the talks, however won’t be able to clarify monetary commitments as Trump will come to energy in January.
An activist demonstrates for local weather justice and a ceasefire in Gaza throughout the UN local weather summit on November 11, 2024 in Baku (Rafiq Maqbool/AP Picture)
What’s on the agenda this 12 months?
COP29 known as the ‘monetary COP’ as a result of it goals to extend financing to help lower-income nations in lowering greenhouse fuel emissions.
A UN-backed report says rising nations, excluding China, will want greater than $2 trillion in annual funding by 2030 if the world is to halt international warming.
Who ought to pay that invoice has beforehand brought on division.
An evaluation commissioned by Britain and Egypt discovered {that a} trillion {dollars} must come from wealthy nations, traders and multilateral improvement banks.
The report added that the rest – about $1.4 trillion – should come from personal and public sources.
In 2009, richer nations pledged to offer $100 billion yearly in local weather finance to creating nations by 2020, which they achieved two years late.
The world’s poorer nations are actually calling for a brand new goal of at the very least $1 trillion a 12 months.
Present donors are urging nations equivalent to China – the world’s largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases – and the UAE – a serious producer of fossil fuels – that are nonetheless creating, to contribute to the fund.
Agreements on the Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs) of all taking part nations can be excessive on the agenda.
An NDC is a rustic’s nationwide local weather motion plan that units targets for lowering greenhouse fuel emissions, according to the objectives of the Paris Settlement.
The NDCs are required to be up to date each 5 years, and with the subsequent spherical due in early 2025, this 12 months’s summit supplies the right alternative to finalize every member’s targets.
What progress has been made since final 12 months’s summit?
A very powerful settlement to emerge from COP28 in Dubai, UAE, was to “shift away from fossil fuels” as a part of the worldwide stocktake.
It was an vital milestone, because it was the primary ever COP textual content to brazenly name on nations to transition away from fossil fuels.
At this stage it’s tough to say whether or not there was vital progress, because the goal to succeed in zero energy-related emissions by 2050 was set. Two targets, together with tripling international renewable vitality capability and doubling international vitality effectivity enhancements, have been set for 2030.
In Aprilthe Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA) has arrange a tracker to measure the set objectives COP28.
Head of Vitality Transition Technique on the Workplace of the UAE Particular Envoy for Local weather Change Abdulla Malek speaks throughout the COP28 in Dubai, UAE, December 5, 2023 (File: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)
Why is the central promise made at COP28 not on the agenda this 12 months?
No official motive has been given.
Nonetheless, specializing in fossil fuels could have been tough as a result of oil and fuel make up about half of Azerbaijan’s financial system and account for 90 p.c of its exports.
An advocacy group additionally secretly recorded Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Vitality Minister and CEO of COP29, who supplied to facilitate talks on new fossil gas offers earlier than the summit.
How will Trump’s election have an effect on the summit’s agenda?
The latest election of Donald Trump as US President won’t immediately change the agenda of this 12 months’s summit, however may affect the implementation of any agreements when it’s inaugurated in January 2025.
Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Settlement, making good on his promise to withdraw from the worldwide pact. His successor, President Joe Biden, signed the US again into the settlement in 2021.
Because the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, a US withdrawal from the pact would have large implications for all of the targets agreed at COP29.
Final 12 monthsthe US produced a median of 12.9 million barrels of crude oil per day, breaking a earlier international report 2019.
Trump has additionally regularly questioned whether or not local weather change is actual and has downplayed its results.
How will local weather change have an effect on the world in 2024?
The EU’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service has stated its scientists are “nearly sure” that 2024 would be the hottest 12 months on report.
The 12 months was additionally marked by excessive climate occasions, with scientists linking storms equivalent to Hurricane Milton, which ripped by Florida and killed at the very least 18 individuals, to local weather change.
(Al Jazeera)
COP29 Azerbaijan: what’s at stake on the 2024 international local weather summit? | Local weather disaster information
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