COP29: disruption from the outset – secret deals and the Trump effect

© David Massie

Do not adjust your TV set: the meeting of COP29, opening today, really is taking place in the petro-state of Azerbaijan, a country deriving 90% of its export revenues from oil and gas extraction, and outdoing the ridiculousness of last year’s COP in Dubai.

In what is now becoming expected COP tradition, the chief executive of Azerbaijan’s COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, has already been seen on video attempting to arrange more fossil fuel business in secret talks – caught by campaign group Global Witness which attended, posing as a fake Hong Kong investment firm.

Mr Soltanov was hoping to secure investment to further develop Azerbaijan’s natural gas fields, citing many “investment opportunities”. For good measure, he also reiterated the tired line of natural gas being a “transition fuel”, a claim which makes about as much sense as transitioning away from football by supporting Arsenal instead of Chelsea.

The nature of the COP event is financial, with discussions under way to discern contributions from the developed world to global southern countries liable to be disproportionately affected by catastrophic climate events brought about by profligate fossil fuel burning in the global north.

Another activist group, Climate Action Network, is calling for developed countries to pay $5trn a year to developing countries, to shore them up against disaster and provide a fiscal incentive to leapfrog fossil fuels directly into renewable energy.

Unfortunately, the event appears even less serious than usual, with the US most likely having forfeited any progress on the climate with the re-election of Donald Trump. The world waits to discover exactly how much climate progress Mr Trump and his emboldened ‘Project 2025’ cabinet can manage to reverse over his upcoming four-year tenure.

US absence from future talks and treaties will leave China, the world’s single biggest global emitter, in almost sole charge of averting disaster. But in these inaugural sessions, China, along with India, appears mainly to be taking issue with the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), with early drama as both countries vie to get a discussion of the measure onto the agenda.

Some experts propose that green investment is now unavoidable, in contrast to the situation in 2016. China’s dominance in EV manufacturing, as well as renewable energy production, mean that to opt out of the green transition is to position the US as an embarrassing backwater on the world stage, and lay the groundwork for an exodus of serious-thinking businesses. Such, they theorise, could be sufficient to shame Mr Trump into action.

“[It is] very risky, I think, for the US to change tack, away from clean energy and clean tech, because that’s the way the world is going,” climate scientist Bill Hare told Australia’s ABC from Azerbaijan. “We have, fundamentally, more investment going on now in clean tech than in fossil fuels, that’s very different than five or six years ago. That’s going to be, I think, a big tailwind in keeping action moving forward.”

Perhaps Mr Trump’s hostility to what he calls the climate “hoax” might also be tempered by input from his new unofficial running mate, Elon Musk, whose companies have enjoyed some $2.8bn in government subsidies – much on environmental grounds – as well as preferential loans and carbon credits. The world’s richest man, seen jumping up and down attempting to make an ‘X’ shape with his body, pledged financial support for Mr Trump’s campaign at one of his recent rallies. Trump recently remarked that Mr Musk’s endorsement left him “no choice” but to support electric vehicles.

But leaving aside the vanishing likelihood of Mr Trump’s personal reinvention as a climate advocate – the greenest president in history, many are saying, and so on – there would also be his party, VP and donors to overcome, particularly think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Heartland Institute  and many others.

The Loadstar’s coverage of COP29 is sponsored by EVERGREEN LINE: leading the development of a sustainable global container transportation system.

To find out more about EVERGREEN LINE’s sustainability strategy please click HERE.