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Cop29 live updates: Carbon credit trade rules approved, breaking lengthy deadlock [1]

['Alan Evans', 'Damien Gayle', 'Bibi Van Der Zee']

Date: 2024-11-11

7h ago 06.15 EST Hallo, this is Bibi van der Zee, taking over from my colleague Damien Gayle. You can email us on [email protected] with thoughts, photos, and suggestions for what we should be reporting. Follow along for updates from Baku, on day one of this vitally important climate summit. Share

7h ago 05.58 EST Adam Morton Australia is hoping to secure hosting rights (in partnership with Pacific nations) for Cop31 in 2026, with an announcement on whether it has been successful possible – though not guaranteed – over the next fortnight. But the competition with Turkey for hosting rights has not been enough to get the Labor prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to Cop29, writes Adam Morton, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor. Albanese has not attended a Cop since becoming national leader in 2022. Instead, Australia will be led by the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, who will arrive for the second week and lead negotiations on the new collective quantified goal for climate finance (NCQG) along with the Egyptian environment minister, Yasmine Fouad. The assistant climate minister, Josh Wilson, is attending the first week, including representing Albanese at leaders’ events. Bowen spoke with the Guardian shortly before the US election on what a second Donald Trump presidency could mean, the importance of a deal on finance in Baku and how the Australian government justifies approving new and expanded fossil fuel export developments while saying it is committed to limiting global heating to 1.5C. He acknowledged work on the NCQG would largely determine whether Cop29 was a success or failure. “I probably should manage expectations, but… this is the finance Cop…Getting an NCQG right is the key element.” You can read the full interview at the link below. Chris Bowen on Trump, science and coal: ‘We’re living climate change. What we’re trying to do is avoid the worst of it’ Read more Share

8h ago 05.48 EST Notwithstanding fears of a lack of civic space for protests and activism at Cop29 in Baku, some people have staged a small demonstration at the summit. Azerbaijan has come under fire for its poor human rights record at home, its war against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and its supplying oil to Israel through a pipeline transiting Turkey. View image in fullscreen Activists demonstrate for climate justice and a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza at the Cop29 summit in Baku. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP View image in fullscreen A child raises her fist among civil society protesters at Cop29. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP View image in fullscreen A woman wearing a keffiyeh holds up placards during a small demonstration at Cop29. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP Share

8h ago 05.31 EST Azerbaijan’s state oil company potentially sealed deals worth $8bn since the spotlight turned on the country as the next host of the UN’s Cop climate talks, an analysis claims. Global Witness said the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) had signed 25 deals with foreign firms in the year it is hosting talks aimed at slashing fossil fuel emissions to try to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown. The environment NGO said the dealmaking was worth close to three times as much as the contracts signed with foreign firms in the previous 12 months. View image in fullscreen A pumpjack operates at a drilling site in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP Patrick Galey, senior fossil fuels investigator at Global Witness, said: The climate crisis gets worse each year, and it seems as if each year we have another fossil fuel company using climate talks to secure pursue ever more oil and gas deals. Cop29, which vulnerable nations are depending on to secure a path for a future they can survive, risks being co-opted by Azerbaijan’s state oil company. SOCAR’s aims – to produce vast quantities of oil and gas for decades – is directly opposed to the stated aim of UN climate talks. This conflict of interest is undermining progress towards the one thing we know will prevent climate breakdown: a rapid and fair phase-out of fossil fuels. Big polluters should have no place in this discussion. We must kick them out of these talks before it’s too late. In April, president Ilyan Aliyev – himself a former senior SOCAR executive – said hosting climate talks would not prevent Azerbaijan from exploiting oil and gas reserves he described as “a gift from the gods”. To meet increased EU demand for Azeri gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, SOCAR plans to produce the 2nd-highest percentage of new oil and gas of any state fossil fuel company, according to the Global Witness analysis. Share

9h ago 04.33 EST Global north owes $5tn a year climate debt to global south, campaigners say Damian Carrington A huge “climate debt” is owed by the global north to the global south, according to campaigners at Cop29, writes Damian Carrington, environment editor. “We are asking for the down payment of a very large debt – a down payment of $5tn [a year],” said Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network, global alliance of more than 1900 civil society organisations in over 130 countries. The argument is simple: rich nations 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. NGOs play a crucial role at climate summits, ensuring the voices of those most affected by the climate crisis are heard, and their participation is formally recognised by the UN. The groups are particularly important as many developing countries have small and overstretched delegations. “We know the debt is much larger, but $5tn is what we come here to demand,” Essop said, wearing a bright lanyard stating “Global North, pay up!! $5tn!”. “Governments out there are absolutely capable of finding the money that does wrong in the world,” she said. “They found the money for military spending. They found the money for the genocide in Gaza. They find the money to subsidise and support the fossil fuel industry. To come here and say that they do not have money is absolutely untruthful and unacceptable.” Delivering a finance deal for developing countries is the central task of Cop29. There is widespread agreement that trillions are needed and available, but who pays what and how is far strongly contested. Essop warned that failing to deliver a good finance deal will severely damage trust among the negotiating nations and therefore impact all other climate issues at Cop29, from carbon cutting plans to a fair transition for workers: “Developing countries will just put their foot down and say, if we’re not going to settle on finance, we’re not settling on anything else.” Share Updated at 06.07 EST

9h ago 04.13 EST Fiona Harvey Mukhtar Babayev, the president of Cop29, has used a Guardian op-ed to call on the private sector to stump up cash for the developing world to invest in a low-carbon economy, writes Fiona Harvey, environment editor, who is in Baku. Babayev, the environment minister of Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s climate conference, wrote in Monday’s Guardian: The onus cannot fall entirely on government purses. Unleashing private finance for developing countries’ transition has long been an ambition of climate talks. Without the private sector, there is no climate solution. The world needs more funds and it needs them faster. History shows we can mobilise the resources required; it’s now a matter of political will. At Cop29, countries will try to forge a new global framework for providing the funds that developing nations need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of worsening extreme weather. Poor countries want climate finance to ramp up from about $100bn a year today to at least $1tn every year by 2035. Developing world needs private finance for green transition, says Cop president Read more Share

9h ago 03.59 EST Dharna Noor At the Cop29 venue itself, the ground quite literally feels unsteady, with the carpeted platform floors sinking slightly underfoot with each step, writes Dharna Noor, the Guardian US’s fossil fuels and climate reporter. The conference is taking place in an enormous, labyrinth-like temporary structure constructed at Baku Olympic Stadium – a misleading name for a venue that has never hosted an Olympic event. Though it is chilly outside in Baku, it is uncomfortably warm inside the venue’s blinding fluorescent lights. View image in fullscreen Some of the food stands at Cop29 in Baku. Photograph: Dharna Noor/The Guardian Unlike in some editions of the summit, food at Cop29 is abundant, with coffee, Domino’s Pizza, and Turkish sesame-topped bagels known as simit served from stands made of unfinished composite wood. Despite its unsettling appearance, the venue is “one of the best I’ve seen at Cop,” said Collin Rees, a program manager at the nonprofit Oil Change International, who has attended 10 previous Cop meetings. “There’s actually food available, it’s well-laid out, and there’s actually enough space to work,” he said, “which is not always the case.” Share

10h ago 03.48 EST Damian Carrington Sultan Al Jaber, the president of Cop28, has some warm words for his own achievements as he hands over to Cop29 president Mukhtar Babayev, writes Damian Carrington, environment editor. “By delivering the historic, comprehensive, balanced and groundbreaking UAE Consensus, we accomplished what many thought was impossible,” said Al Jaber, who is also CEO of the United Arab Emirate’s national oil company Adnoc. He’s largely referring to the pledge to “transition away” from fossil fuels, which was historic given the astonishing fact that none of the previous 27 climate summits mentioned fossil fuels, the overwhelming driver of the climate crisis. It was however a serious disappointment to the many nations who wanted a “phase out” of fossil fuels. View image in fullscreen The Cop28 president, Sultan al-Jaber, left, with Mukhtar Babayev, Cop29 president, at the opening plenary session in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP Al Jaber also mentioned that the voluntary industry initiative, the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, now has companies representing 44% of global production committing to zero methane emissions by 2030. “History will judge us by our actions, not by our words,” he told delegates in Baku. The UAE’s own national pledges are rated as “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker. Whether there is any sign that the “transition away” from fossil fuels is being put into action may come with the release of the 2024Global Carbon Budgeton Wednesday. Share Updated at 03.49 EST

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[1] Url: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2024/nov/11/cop29-live-the-climate-summit-gets-under-way-in-azerbaijan?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6731cc548f08a0d8bfbd3cf6#block-6731cc548f08a0d8bfbd3cf6

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