Global leaders and environmental activists are gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the Conference of the Parties 29, the latest edition of the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, amidst political churnings in many parts of the world threatening to undermine the limited progress made in combating global warming. Wars, such as the ongoing ones in Ukraine and Gaza, always lead to an increase in carbon emissions — the military of the United States of America, a major player in both conflicts, emits more greenhouse gases than all of Portugal. These wars have also deepened geopolitical divisions, making any global compact harder to arrive at. But the biggest cloud hovering over CoP29 will undoubtedly be in the shape of Donald Trump, the US president-elect. In his first term in office, he had pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord, while taking policy decisions to substantially increase oil and gas production and consumption in the country, including through environmentally controversial practices like fracking. President Joe Biden, after assuming office in 2020, had brought the US back into the Paris pact. Now, after his election win over the vice-president, Kamala Harris, there are troubling whispers that Mr Trump and his team are preparing executive orders to yank the US out of the Paris deal, once again.
The consequences would be significant. The US under President Biden has significantly raised its international climate finance assistance, from $5.8 billion in 2022 to a target of $11 billion in 2024. Financial and technological assistance from rich to poorer countries, which face the brunt of climate change despite having done little to cause it, is a key pillar of the Paris understanding. Without it, developing countries will be even more vulnerable to climate disasters than they already are. It will also strengthen the voices of those around the world who argue that if the world’s second-largest polluter is not willing to clean up its act, other countries should not share the burden of climate change mitigation either. Yet such thinking would be myopic, to say the least. Hurricanes of increased ferocity that are becoming more frequent because of climate change will ravage Africa and America alike. Droughts in food-producing developing countries will cause hunger and inflation everywhere while forced displacement because of extreme weather events will lead to mass migration that walls will not stop. CoP29 needs to serve as a reminder to all countries, especially a US led by Mr Trump, that the battle against climate change is an existential one.
