COP 29: Another over-promised and under-achieved climate summit?

In connection with the UN climate summit (COP29), which is to be held from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the US presidential election is approaching. For now, the US delegation to the summit will be led by John Podesta, senior adviser on international climate policy. It is difficult to predict whether the United States will have its own climate envoy by the time COP30 takes place.

The US election is not the only puzzle of the summit. More worryingly, COP29 is divided on its obvious goal: climate finance.

The Baku COP is so focused on climate finance – and its new collective quantified goal (NCQG) – that it has been dubbed the “Finance COP”. According to the NCQG, wealthy member states determine their quantified contributions to the annual climate finance targets agreed upon after President Barack Obama's active intervention in 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Developed countries at COP15 agreed to contribute $100 billion annually by 2020. However, they did not fulfill this promise until 2022, and that too only twice. (Tarique Niazi, more at fpif.org)