With so much chaos in the world, from the United States' slide toward authoritarianism to the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine, you could be forgiven for not focusing on what's happening this week in Baku, Azerbaijan.
World leaders are meeting there for the annual United Nations climate talks. Their task at the summit, known as COP29, is arguably the most important in the world: determining how to execute and build on the commitment of virtually all nations to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to protect humanity from a terrible and growing threat.
This is not the time to look the other way or diminish the urgency and importance of those promises and imperatives.
This year's negotiations are particularly focused on how to increase up to 1 billion dollars a year in climate finance to help the world's vulnerable and developing nations, which have caused little of the planet-warming pollution but already face the brunt of the consequences. The rich countries that are overwhelmingly responsible for the crisis, having pumped far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, are predictably reluctant to pay more.
As the conference neared its scheduled end this week, the U.N. climate chief scolded negotiators for being stubborn and wasting time with bluffing and brinkmanship. Even if a solid agreement is reached, there is no real guarantee that there will be no backtracking. The agreement that emerged from last year's conference called for “making the transition”from fossil fuels for the first time, but a year later, countries have did not make substantial progress when doing so.
The backdrop to these conversations is not exactly encouraging either. they are being held in a petrostate for the third consecutive year and are again inundated with fossil fuel lobbyists. The host country, whose president told conference attendees that oil and gas are a “gift of god”, plans to increase fossil fuel production over the next decade. Some nations and corporationsmeanwhile, they have been withdrawing from his climate commitments.
It doesn't help that Donald Trump, president-elect of the world's largest historical carbon emitter, has a long history of making false claims about climate science and renewable energy. He has announced a series of Cabinet elections that have distorted the reality of climate change. His nominee for Energy Secretary, oil and gas services executive Chris Wright, has falsely claimed that “there is no climate crisis” and “there is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy.”
But just as we cannot circumvent the laws of physics underlying global warming, we cannot afford further delays in ending the dangerous burning of fossil fuels. None of our procedural, political or financial excuses for inaction mean anything if we continue to fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases that endanger life on this planet as we know it.
This year is expected to be the hottest in recorded historywhile global carbon emissions are on track to rise an additional 0.8%reaching another record. UN Secretary General António Guterres called the year 2024 a “master class in climate destruction.”
The Earth has already warmed 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit since the pre-industrial era and is on track to warm a total of 4.7 to 5.6 degrees. That guarantees more deadly and destructive heat waves, storms, floods and droughts unless we do more, quickly, to reduce emissions.
Is there hope? Of course. Electric vehicles are spreading rapidly around the world, and renewable sources such as wind and solar accounted for 30% of global power generation last year, a figure that is expected to grow even faster this year. We are still in the early stages of a generational shift towards a new and better energy system, and it seems clear that we will never return to the dirty economy of the past based on fossil fuels. As Guterres said last week: “The clean energy revolution is here. No group, no company and no government can stop it.”
But world leaders must act quickly and decisively to accelerate the transition. Renewable energy must continue to grow dramatically to outpace growing demand for electricity as economies shift toward carbon-free vehicles and appliances.
Political setbacks, missed goals and failed ambitions are certainly alarming and demoralizing in the context of such a threat. But we must continue fighting. Every ton of pollution and fraction of a degree of warming we can prevent will reduce human suffering and ecological damage. If we take action, we do not need to resign ourselves to the worst possible future.
