Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has darkened the outlook for a strong deal at the COP29 global climate summit next week and will heap pressure on Europe and China to lead international progress in curbing planetary warming, according to climate negotiators.
More than 100 heads of state and government are expected to land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, over the next few days and the first thing they are likely to notice is the smell of oil. The odour hangs heavy in the air, evidence of the abundance of fossil fuels in this small country on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Flaring from refineries lights up the night sky, and the city is dotted with diminutive “nodding donkey” oil wells raising and lowering their pistons as they draw from the earth. Even the national symbol is a gas flame, epitomised in the shape of three skyscrapers that tower over the city.
Azerbaijan has been built on oil since the mid-19th century, and fossil fuels now make up 90% of its exports. There could be no starker reminder of the core question that world leaders have come to Baku to decide: whether the planet will burn so that fossil fuel producers can continue to make money, or whether to take a different path.
That the world’s biggest economy, the US, is about to shift away from the focus on clean energy fostered by Joe Biden towards the “drill, baby, drill” policies of Donald Trump will be a main topic of conversation for the tens of thousands of delegates at the Cop29 UN climate summit. However, many will point out that no country has ever produced as much oil and gas as the US does now, with 20% more oil and gas licences issued during the Biden administration than during Trump’s first term.
Climate leaders reacted with defiance to the US election outcome. “The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action but it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonise the economy and meet the goals of the Paris agreement,” declared Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who is a co-founder of the Global Optimism thinktank.
Trump will not be at Cop29, a fortnight-long meeting that is the latest in a near annual series stretching back to 1992 when the UN framework convention on climate change – the parent treaty to the 2015 Paris climate agreement – was signed.
Those talks may appear to have achieved little, as greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and the losses from extreme weather – record hurricanes in the Atlantic, dramatic floods last week in Spain, drought in Africa that has threatened millions with famine – are becoming daily more apparent. Last year was the hottest on record and this year is likely to be hotter still.
