What Is COP29? Here’s What to Know About Global Climate Talks.
United Nations climate talks are starting in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday.
The meeting will come just days after the election victory of Donald J. Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a hoax, and at the end of what will probably be the hottest year in recorded history. Extreme weather, much of it made more intense by climate change, is wreaking havoc around the globe.
Against that backdrop, diplomats and heads of state and government from nearly 200 countries are gathering to try to chart a path forward. Here’s a concise guide to the meeting.
What is COP29?
It’s an annual gathering of the 197 countries that have agreed to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Those countries, the parties to the convention, come together every year and try to update their plans to address climate change.
COP stands for Conference of the Parties. This is the 29th such gathering.
In recent years, COP has grown from a relatively insular meeting of diplomats and policy experts into an enormous event that attracts tens of thousands of attendees, including business executives, the leaders of nonprofit groups and activists.
When is COP29?
The event is scheduled to take place from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22, but the gatherings have a history of going into overtime as negotiators scramble to secure final agreements.
Where is COP29?
Each year’s COP is held in a different city. This year, the formal proceedings will take place at the main sports stadium in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
The United Nations holds the conference in a different region of the world each year. This year’s event was slated for Eastern Europe. But Russia, which has veto power over the site selection, refused to allow COP29 to be held in a European Union country because of the bloc’s support for Ukraine.
That left a short list of countries that could host, and the winner was Azerbaijan, a nation of just 10 million sandwiched between Russia and Iran in the Caucasus. A major oil and gas producer, Azerbaijan has enjoyed an economic renaissance in recent years. It has also stifled its critics and jailed activists and journalists.
What is the main goal?
This year, the focus is on finance. That’s because building out clean energy systems, making cities more resilient to extreme weather, and transitioning factories and transportation systems away from fossil fuels will require trillions of dollars.
Right now, very little of that money is available at competitive interest rates, especially for poorer countries. In Baku, negotiators hope to develop plans to unlock more financial resources that can be used to promote clean energy and adapt to a warming planet.
Countries will also present their updated national climate action plans, which detail how they plan to reduce emissions. At the end of the conference, negotiators will try to ratify a final agreement that will include new commitments to address climate change.
Who will attend?
More than 100 heads of state and government are planning to attend, including the leaders of Barbados, Finland, Greece, Kenya, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.
But many other leaders are expected to skip this year’s talks, including President Biden, as well as the leaders of China, India, Brazil, Britain, Germany and France. President-elect Trump is not expected to attend, either.
U.S. officials planning to attend include John Podesta, Mr. Biden’s adviser for international climate policy; Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary; Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture; and Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser.
How will the U.S. election result affect COP29?
The re-election of Mr. Trump will have profound implications for the United States’ efforts to reduce its own emissions, and for international efforts to combat climate change.
The president-elect has pledged to roll back U.S. support for clean energy and electric cars, expand fossil fuel production and reduce regulations designed to curtail emissions and pollution.
During his first term, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord, and he has said he would do the same when he returns to the White House. That will reduce pressure on other countries to move swiftly to reduce their emissions and could leave an opening for China to assume leadership of international efforts to address climate change.
How will wars affect COP29?
The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have made global cooperation more difficult than usual in recent years. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is planning to attend. But Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is not expected to be there.
But more than territorial disputes, the issues in play at COP29 have to do with how much money countries can allocate to accelerating the energy transition, and how swiftly they can reduce planet-warming emissions.
