Upwards of 50,000 people have flown into oil-rich Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th annual United Nations climate conference where an aggressive push to limit carbon emissions is expected to dominate proceedings alongside demands for “compensation” to be paid by wealthy, industrial nations to the world’s poorest.
One noted absentee will be climate activist Greta Thunberg who says she will not be attending COP29 because the event is “greenwashing.”
Host nation Azerbaijan “has no ambition to take climate action”, she says, the BBC reports.
Even without her presence organizers have an ambitious schedule ahead with their desire not just to limit global emissions of pollutants but also arrange wealth transfers from rich industrialized countries to poorer third world entities it is claimed suffer due to their lack of development.
The hope is to resolve the COP29 summit’s top agenda item – a deal for up to $1 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries, replacing a target of $100 billion.
“We are asking for the down payment of a very large debt – a down payment of $5tn [a year],” sais Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network, global alliance of more than 1900 civil society organisations in over 130 countries.
The argument is rich nations allegedly prospered by burning fossil fuels and now need to fund poorer nations to avoid the same path, and cope with the severe heatwaves, floods and storms fuelled by global heating and already here.
“We know the debt is much larger, but $5tn is what we come here to demand,” Essop declared to the Guardian.
COP29 takes place in the shadow of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the move will doubtless see him repeat his scepticism of the entire “save the world” mantra of environmental activists.
Trump has pledged to once again withdraw the U.N. from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
As the talks opened, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell told countries: “Now is the time to show that global cooperation is not down for the count.”
And he warned wealthy countries who are struggling to agree a new funding target to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity.”
“An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”
More than 51,000 people are expected at the COP29 talks, which run from November 11 to 22.
