Day two of the UN Conference of the Parties meeting (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, saw numerous heads of state roll into town to pay homage to he global warming cause. In all, some 100 world leaders were represented, with many ushered into the main plenary stage to deliver short testimonials on how their nation is on course to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, long before which they will be out of office or dead.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres set the tenor of the event by focusing on what many, particularly in the developing world, flew all this way in their gas-guzzling jets to discuss: Money. “Developing countries must not leave Baku empty-handed. A deal is a must and I’m confident it will be reached… On climate finance, the world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price,” Guterres said to applause.
Notably absent from this high-brow affair were major world leaders from China, India, Germany, France, Canada and the U.S.A., the nations that would most likely “pay up” as Mr. Guterres demanded. Instead, the list mostly included smaller nations such as Morrocco, Congo, Kenya, Tuvulu and the Bahamas; in other words, countries that would be on the cash-receiving end.
There were exceptions. Great Britain’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, made his climate debut appearance at COP 29. He showed up specifically to announce his country’s determination to rid itself of energy abundance. Taking his turn on stage, he boasted that “In the first 100 days of this government….We scrapped the ban on onshore wind…We committed to no new North Sea oil and gas licenses… [and] we closed the UK’s final coal power plant at the end of September.” In their place he said they would commit to more green energy, and finished his remarks with a bang by announcing that by 2035 the UK will “reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% on 1990 levels.”
Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez also spoke, pinning climate change as culpable for his nation’s recent flooding that left 220 dead; as did Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, who pledged more financial assistance to developing countries to help them “strengthen adaptation and build resilience” to climate impacts.
Not all were amused, however, by the UN’s showcase of international pomp and show.
A group called CARE, which works on global poverty, complained about the gender mix which contained too much testosterone onstage. “Women and girls bear the brunt of the climate crisis and often design the solutions, yet only 8 out of the 78 world leaders participating in COP29 are women,” the group noted in a press release. “While the Conference of Parties (COP) strive to be an inclusive summit, the negotiation table remains far from diverse.”
Other malcontents, like the nation of Paupau New Guinea, didn’t even show up to criticize the event, as they bailed out before it took place. “There’s no point going if we are falling asleep because of jet lag because we’re not getting anything done,” Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said. “COP is a total waste of time.”
Perhaps the most newsworthy event of Day 2 in Baku, however, was not what was scripted onstage by the UN hierarchy, but what was said by the President of the host country of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.
He greeted the delegates in his opening remarks by saying oil and gas a “gift from God”, and then went on to praise fossil fuel use and slam critics of his nation’s export of gas and oil to build its economy.
“Fake news media of the country which is (the) number one oil and gas producer in the world and produces 30 times more oil than Azerbaijan, call us ‘petrostate’,” President Aliyev said. “They better look at themselves.” He also took aim at “so-called independent NGOs and some politicians, as if (they) were competing in spreading disinformation and false information about our country”.
These remarks, needless to say, made some on the Left go ballistic. Martin Kaiser, head of Greenpeace Germany, described the statement as a ‘‘slap in the face’’. “For all those who are already suffering from the consequences of climate change, such as the Pacific island states. The scientific community is unanimous: in order to prevent the worst effects of global warming, no more new coal, oil and gas extraction projects should be built,” he said.
To be sure, it was an eventful day 2 at COP 29. Stayed tuned for more updates from CFACT in Azerbaijan coming soon.
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