CNN: ‘The UN climate summit ended in bitterness & accusations of betrayal. Now fears are growing for its future’

CNN: COP29 described by climate activists as “an insult, a joke and a betrayal” – ‘Was set up to fail from the start’ – ‘A conference of chaos’ – ‘Fossil fuel lobbyists’ lobbyists heavily outnumbered most country delegations’ – ‘Worried Trump would derail talks’

CNN — This year’s UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan kicked off with a fulsome celebration of fossil fuels, praised by the country’s president Ilham Aliyev as a “gift of God.” It ended with a climate finance deal developing countries called an insult, a joke and a betrayal. Amid geopolitical upheaval, including the election of a climate denier in the US, Baku might be remembered as the beginning of the end of multilateral climate action. COP climate summits are always painstaking and fraught. But they have had major successes, most notably the 2015 Paris climate agreement, under which countries committed to keeping global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5. And yet, nearly a decade later, the world is on track for the hottest year on record and levels of planet-heating pollution are projected to reach an all-time high.

In many ways, COP29 was set up to fail from the start: Russia ensured the summit was held in a fossil fuel-reliant nation by using its United Nations veto to prevent any European Union country from hosting. It was a conference of chaos. Many wealthy country leaders failed to show up, Argentina pulled out its negotiators, and some developing country groups grew so frustrated in the final throes of talks, they walked out.

COPs have been held in petrostates before. But fossil fuel interests appeared truly unleashed in Baku — potentially emboldened by the imminent arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, a man who has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” and pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. …

More than 1,700 fossil fuel industry players and lobbyists registered to attend the summit, heavily outnumbering most country delegations. And Saudi Arabia, a constant thorn in the side of those pushing ambitious climate action, said the quiet bit out loud at this summit, publicly and explicitly rejecting any mention of fossil fuels in the final agreement. …

Climate groups compared the final deal to a band-aid on a bullet wound, and developing countries reacted with fury. “This is not just a failure; it is a betrayal,” the Least Developed Countries Group on Climate Change said in a statement, adding that the “outright dismissal” of developing countries’ needs “erodes the fragile trust that underpins these negotiations and mocks the spirit of global solidarity.” To succeed, the whole system needs reorienting, Singh said, “to serve the interests of the most vulnerable, rather than those of fossil fuel lobbyists and polluters.” …

This is likely to be tough as the geopolitical terrain changes, and right-wing politicians who embrace fossil fuels and deride climate action see electoral success.