Summary
Well we have made it to the end of the day in Baku where negotiations are winding up for the night [though, brace yourselves, they are set to continue for at least another week.] We’re going to wind up the blog now. Today’s highlights (and lowlights) have included:
• A new report which found that at least 1,773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. The report raises serious concerns about the planet-heating industry’s influence on the negotiations.
• Former US vice president Al Gore adds his voice to the growing concern that fossil fuel corporations and their lobbyists have an unhealthy grip over the process.
• The Green Party in the UK also backs calls to exclude fossil fuel companies and their army of lobbyists.
• My colleague Damian Carrington discovers that fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists are not just attending Cop29 - they are getting the full red carpet treatment. He reports that at least 132 oil and gas company bosses and staff were invited here as “guests” by the Azerbaijani government and given the coveted host country badges.
• Delegates try to answer the question everyone in Baku [and many other places] are asking: what happens to the global fight for climate justice when Donald Trump takes over as US president next year?
• More than 1200 huge leaks of methane have been reported to the companies and countries responsible in the last 18 months, but just 15 responded and fixed the leaks, the UN environment programme (Unep) told Cop29 on Friday.
The G7 has been awarded the first Fossil of the Day award at Cop29, for failing to provide the climate finance that is the key goal at the UN summit. The Fossil of the Day has become a Cop tradition, with activists playing out the awards ceremony in the conference halls.
“The G7 have received the award for spending the past 20 years dodging, skirting, and running away from their fiscal responsibility to pay up for their growing climate finance debt,” the organisers said.
At least a trillion dollars a year is needed by developing countries to develop renewable energy, protect their citizens from increasing extreme weather, and rebuild after now inevitable climate disasters. The G7 is an alliance of rich nations made up of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK.
“They have come to Cop29 without putting forward any proposed figure for the climate finance goal,” the organisers said. “These countries may not be a voting bloc in these halls, yet they have certainly been able to block progress here. This exclusive club, whose members are amongst the top 10 historical emitters, wants everyone else to have equal responsibility for fixing the climate crisis.”
“The G7 is standing in the way of delivering much-needed progress to meet the 1.5C goal and prevent us from joining the dinosaurs and becoming extinct.”
Updated
The Azerbaijani government is using Cop29 to crack down on environmental activists and other political opponents, according to human rights groups.
Climate Action Network, a group of nearly 2,000 climate groups, told BBC News the protection of civil society is crucial if countries want to see progress on climate change.
The Azerbaijani government rejects the claims and says the government holds no political prisoners.
But Natalia Nozadze from Amnesty International told said that since Azerbaijan was announced as the host country for COP29 in November last year it has become harder to oppose the government.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in arrests and clamp down on all issues that the government may perceive critical or contrary to its political agenda,” she said.
My colleague Adam Morton, the Guardian’s climate and environment editor in Australia, is on his way to Cop29 this weekend. He has just filed this story on Australia’s bid to host Cop31 in 2026.
The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, made a whistle-stop visit to Turkey on Friday night in an attempt to reach a deal for Australia to host tens of thousands of people at a major UN climate summit in 2026.
Bowen visited the Turkish capital, Ankara, on the way to the Cop29 climate conference in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku. The two countries are vying to host Cop31, and the Albanese government hopes Turkey will exit the race in time for an announcement before next week.
Laurence Tubiana, an influential figure in the climate negotiations and current chief of the European Climate Foundation, has posted on social media outlining her view on calls for the reform of the Cop process.
I know some are frustrated with the COP and UNFCCC processes, given the urgent need to accelerate action. While reforms are needed, let’s not forget: multilateralism is the foundation of climate progress. The Paris Agreement happened because every country had a voice.
Yes, the process can be slow and frustrating. And yes, we need to improve delivery, strengthen accountability, and give a stronger voice to subnationals and those on the frontlines. But reforms must strengthen, not sideline, the consensus-building that builds trust.
The Paris Agreement was reached because all countries – large and small, rich and poor – were included. Its legitimacy stems from its multilateral nature.
The rotating COP presidency is an important feature, giving every country a chance to lead. But hosting comes with responsibility: to follow the science, act in good faith, and remain impartial. Misusing the role will harm credibility internationally.
COPs are the venue for organising together to accelerate climate action. They’re not the place for every sector to push its own agenda—especially when those agendas run counter to climate progress.
Earlier my colleague Damian Carrington posted about the extortionate price of food at Cop29.
Now another food related issue has arisen – food labelled as vegan containing cheese, and others labelled vegetarian containing fish and chicken.
Activists have staged a protest denouncing the presence of big polluters in front of the OPEC and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum at Cop29 in Baku.
Members of 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Oil Change International, and the Pacific Climate Warriors staged the protest to highlight their opposition to the presence of the fossil fuel industry at COP29.
Earlier my colleague Dharna Noor revealed that more than 1700 fossil fuel lobbyists have been accredited for this COP.
Joseph Sikulu, 350.org and Pacific Climate Warriors said: “2024 marks yet another year at COP where we see those fighting the climate crisis outnumbered by those that have contributed to it the most — the fossil fuel industry. How can we achieve the ambition that is needed to save our homes when these negotiations are continually flooded with fossil fuel lobbyists? There is a ban on Tobacco lobbyists from attending the World Health Organization’s summit, why is that not the case for the fossil fuel industry at COP? We demand that the upcoming COP presidencies set clear rules against the presence of fossil fuel interests at the negotiating table. Our lives depend on it.”
Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International, said: “The oil and gas industry’s infiltration of the climate talks is one of the main reasons it’s taken 30 years for the negotiations to tackle fossil fuels, the core driver of the climate crisis. The presence of OPEC and the GECF at COP29 is a symptom of the Global North’s neocolonial approach to fossil fuel extraction across the world and rich countries’ refusal to pay up for climate damages they have caused. We urgently need bold climate finance commitments that deliver the quantity and quality of public finance needed to enable a just transition and strong conflict of interest rules to keep polluters from distracting and delaying the climate talks.”
Nicolas Haeringer, 350.org said: “OPEC and the GECF are only the tip of this melting iceberg. In their pavilion, at least they are visible – The fossil fuel industry goes unnoticed while it is represented everywhere at COP29’s negotiations halls. We need stricter rules so that these lobbyists stop derailing the process and to start, rich countries from the Global North must pay up. The trillions of dollars we are demanding here in Baku are precisely about that: it is the only fair way that members of OPEC and GECF will be able to phase out fossil fuels”.
Updated
Insiders at the White House say the Biden administration is working hard on its NDC - the nationally determined contribution or carbon reduction plan - amid pressure to submit one before his term ends and Donald Trump comes in.
White House climate advisor Ali Zaidi this week noted that this round of NDCs will remain in place through 2035, while Trump’s term will end in four years.
There is more reaction swirling around Cop29 in Baku to the call overnight for an overhaul of the entire process so in future it would exclude fossil fuel representatives and their lobbyists.
Michai Robertson, the climate finance negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States[SIDS], spoke earlier today at a press conference in Baku and explained that even if flawed, the COP is the only major international forum in which the voices of SIDS and the Least Developed Countries are given equal billing with those of the richest nations.
Other spaces where things are discussed in the context of climate change, where we’re seeing a lot more prominence being placed on climate finance - for example, the Group of 20 - we’re not a part of that.
We are not a part of those discussions and so it’s extremely important for forums like the UNFCCC to continue to exist and to continue to be legitimate.
So you have the G20 over in one corner, you have the BRICS over in another corner and we’re seeing persons going to these different other corners as opposed to the legitimate corners where all of us can be around the table.
While others may have their criticisms of the COP process, it’s extremely important for us because that is the only time that our voice can be clearly heard. So we hope that they can appreciate that even though they may have been, as you alluded to, I think, former heads of this entire process.
We hope to continue to make sure that the COP process is as efficient as possible.”
Red carpet treatment revealed for oil bosses
Fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists are not just attending Cop29 - at least 132 oil and gas company bosses and staff were invited here as “guests” by the Azerbaijani government and given host country badges, the Guardian has learned.
That is equivalent to red carpet treatment at a UN climate summit. The holders of host country badges include Amin Nasser, the boss of Saudi oil giant Aramco, and nine others from his company. Saudi Arabia has long been a recalcitrant actor at Cops.
The single biggest beneficiary of the VIP treatment was another Saudi power company, ACWA, which has coal, gas and renewable assets. Its CEO, Marco Arcelli, was accompanied by 24 of his staff.
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss was another granted a host country pass, along with seven others from the company. BP has a long history in Azerbaijan and remains a key player in the petrostate’s oil and gas operations. Exxonmobil’s head Darren Woods and three staff also received the special invites.
My colleague Dharna Noor revealed earlier today that at least 1773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to Cop29, according to analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition. That outnumbers the delegations of almost every country at the conference. These attendees are largely part of their national delegation to Cop29, not official members of the delegation of the host nation which oversees the talks.
Senior climate figures called earlier today for future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying. Azerbaijan, which is increasing its gas production, is the only the latest petrostate to host a Cop. Last year, the UAE oversaw Cop28, with Sultan Al Jaber as Cop president alongside his day job as CEO of the national oil company Adnoc.
Many campaigners are angry at the presence of fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists at Cops. Dawda Cham, from Help, Gambia, said: “The fossil fuel industry has long manipulated climate negotiations to protect its interests while our planet burns. It’s time to sever these ties and ensure that the voices of the Global South are amplified, not silenced. We must kick big polluters out of our climate conversations and make them pay.”
Updated
More from colleagues in Baku on what would happen if Trump pulled out.
Fiona Harvey says: “Talks carried on at Cops among other countries during the last Trump White House which played little part in the process even before the formal withdrawal.
Under George W Bush, the US continued to attend Cops but refused to move at the same pace as other countries and would not ratify the Kyoto protocol. So a twin track approach was set up at Cops so the rest of the world could continue to meet and talk without the US, while the stream of negotiations including the US carried on but could not stymy progress.”
Dharna Noor reports that at a press conference today Jennifer Granholm, the US secretary for energy, said: “Our message is that regardless of who is actually occupying the White House, this transition is happening. It is happening in the United States at the sub national level, and with the private sector and with NGOs. It is happening globally, with countries that you all represent who are not turning back. The absence of leadership in the White House does not mean that this energy transition is stopped.”
Granholm said: “In fact, I would say to countries who might see the US stepping back from climate policy as a reason to step back themselves, I would say to the contrary, this is the time to accelerate to fill that gap that may be left by leadership in the United States.
She remained optimistic: “Truly this transition is happening, and there’s no turning back.”
On Wednesday Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, said in the High Ambition Coalition press conference that even if Trump pulls out of the Paris Agreement, negotiations won’t fall apart. “The Paris Agreement is a robust process.”
She also said it won’t derail ongoing decarbonization work in the US. “We don’t think that the election result will necessarily put a stop to the process that is underway in the United States. States and cities are already actively moving this process forward. It might be different at the federal level with the new president, but I think already policies done in place to move this work forward.”
But right afterward in the conference Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said a US withdrawal from Paris will be a “regressive step” from the world’s largest historical emitter.
“The United States has an obligation, a moral obligation, perhaps more so than any other, to provide leadership and climate funding,” he said.
The Land of Fire
Drive up the road from the UN climate summit in Baku, past nodding pumpjacks and snaking pipelines, and you reach a fire that has been burning for centuries.
The natural flames of Yanar Dag are a curious sight. The “burning mountain” rages continuously, with tongues of fire that can reach 3 metres high.
The explanation for this strange phenomenon is hinted at by the infrastructure that dots the region. Yanar Dag is fuelled by the vast quantities of gas below the ground, which in some places seep out of porous sandstone. A similar attraction, the “eternal flame” of the nearby Baku fire temple, exhausted its fuel in 1969 and now relies on gas piped in from the city.
The naturally occurring blazes have prompted Azerbaijan to market itself as “the land of fire” – as has the historical importance of Zoroastrianism, a religion with deep ties to fire. But as the host of Cop29, Azerbaijan has attracted more attention for its fuels than its flames. Oil and gas make up more than 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports, and the two hydrocarbons comprise almost the entirety of its energy mix. The president, Ilham Aliyev, used the climate summit as a chance to describe the country’s oil and gas as “a gift of God”.
Surprisingly, though, staff at Yanar Dag say visitor numbers have dropped this week. Tens of thousands of climate-curious people have registered for the climate summit – among them more than 1,000 lobbyists, campaigners say – but it seems few have found time to escape the clutches of the conference centre.
Updated
In response to an earlier post [11.16 GMT] on methane leaks from my colleague Damian Carrington, London-based think tank Carbon Tracker have been in touch to highlight a report it published on Thursday. In it oil and gas companies are accused of “exacerbating the climate crisis” regarding methane and it identifes “major loopholes” in pledges to reach “near-zero” methane emissions.
One such loophole is that none of the 30 companies analyzed have set targets that “cover all methane emissions related to their business activities.”
Many of the companies operate gas pipelines and LNG tankers, which can emit methane but are not covered in most pledges. The same goes for joint ventures that companies do not operate directly. These are often located in countries with lower methane standards and high average methane intensities. Carbon Tracker called this a “blind spot” for many oil and gas majors, because such ventures can account for a large chunk of corporate emissions.
The report also finds around 25 to 30 oil and gas producers had committed to ending “routine” flaring by 2030. The practice involves releasing the small amount of gas that comes out of the ground during oil extraction — because it is too expensive to process and transport.
But Carbon Tracker said this only makes up a small part of companies’ total flaring, which also happens to reduce dangerous increases in pressure. According to the report, few companies have said they will eliminate all non-emergency flaring.
“Oil and gas companies are paying lip service to climate action while emissions from their products are fueling increasingly severe storms, droughts, floods and heat waves around the world,” said Olivia Bisel, lead author and associate oil and gas analyst at Carbon Tracker, in a statement.
The Cop29 media center has its very own Domino’s pizza outpost, where I met up with 22-year-old climate activist Michael Nabieu for a chat. Nabieu, who came to the summit with UNICEF, hails from a rural town in Sierra Leone, a country ranked in the top 10 percent of countries vulnerable to climate change despite having contributed just 0.003 percent to global carbon emissions since 1950.
He said Cop29 negotiators must be “inclusive in their decision making processes and ensure that all of these people, particularly vulnerable communities, are given the right to participate in key decision making processes.”
Nabieu’s parents are farmers who have been ravaged by extreme flooding in Sierra Leone. He has also tragically lost siblings during a devastating war. Yet he refuses to be pessimistic and has instead chosen to take environmental action however he can.
Floods in Sierra Leone left farmland eroded, “meaning it washes away the top nutrients of the soil, exposing our land to be so vulnerable and infertile,” Nabieu said.
To help combat this, he began researching soil health by watching Youtube videos about composing and meeting with university experts. He started collecting waste – cow dung, molasses, water, ash — to turn into fertilizer to help rejuvenate the soil. It massively helped the land, and he began training people in his community and beyond to employ the practice.
Nabieu’s activism has had other impacts, too: The Sierra Leonean government agreed to add climate climate change into school curricula throughout the country following pressure from him and other UNICEF activists.
He’s loved meeting other young activists at Cop29. “I’ve met so many friends!”
Updated
Flora Vano has travelled to Cop29 in Baku from Vanuatu, a country comprised of 80 low-lying South Pacific islands. Her view on the negotiations? “Big talk, small actions.”
For her, the climate talks are an urgent matter. Due to the climate crisis, Vanuatu could be completely swallowed by the rising seas within decades. Her future, she said, is dependent on wealthy nations like the US providing them finance to adapt — and even retreat.
“We are facing our whole survival there,” she said. “We won’t exist anymore. And there will be the US, still there standing tall.”
UK Greens back calls to ban fossil fuel lobbyists
The Green Party in the UK is backing calls overnight for a reform of the COP process to exclude fossil fuel companies and their army of lobbyists.
Party co-leader Carla Denyer MP said: “This is a timely call for reform of an international forum that has achieved a great deal but now needs to drive action in the face of the dire climate crisis the world faces.”
Denyer said the COP process had brought the world together and succeeded in putting scientific evidence at the heart of policy making.”
“It has set out the scale of the crisis the world faces and has agreed, in principle, that those countries which have caused the crisis should be funding the loss and damage experienced by those who are bearing its costs.”
But she warned the “crucial next phase of making change happen is being derailed by the fossil fuel lobby and complicit nation states.”
“The election of a climate change denier as US President whose election call was ‘drill, baby, drill’, underlines the need to reform the COP process.
“We need to move urgently to a new phase of implementation, where COP becomes the forum to hold governments to account and push forward a change agenda, including supporting countries to adapt to the impacts of the crisis already being felt.
“To achieve this, we must exclude the fossil fuel companies and their lobbying arms and strengthen the representation of those countries and indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change.”
She added: “COP has succeeded in highlighting the need for urgent change and has laid the foundations for achieving that, but it must now reform and refocus on making change happen.”
Updated
Over 1000 methane leaks reported, but just 15 fixed
More than 1200 huge leaks of methane have been reported to the companies and countries responsible in the last 18 months, but just 15 responded and fixed the leaks, the UN environment programme (Unep) told Cop29 on Friday.
However, the recent plugging of a decade-long gas leak in Algeria just weeks after the UN’s notification shows the “eye in the sky” satellite system can work. Even the few leaks that were fixed after the UN alerts amount to emissions of taking a million cars off the road.
Methane, the scientific name for fossil gas, is a potent greenhouse gas, 82 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2 over 20 years. It is responsible for one third of global heating to date and the climate crisis cannot be ended without slashing methane emissions. The good news is that the fixes for leaky fossil fuel sites are often fast and very simple - “a guy with a wrench”, as one expert put it.
Turkmenistan had the most methane plumes spotted by Unep’s Methane Alert and Response System with 388. The Guardian reported Turkmenistan’s “mind-boggling” leaks in May 2023 and was told this had prompted government attention to the problem.
A multi-million-dollar, UN-led joint programme to cut emissions in Turkmenistan has recently been endorsed by the government and is awaiting final approval to start work. The UN says there is the potential to cut 4m tonnes of methane leaks a year in Turkmenistan, equivalent to more than the entire annual CO2 emissions of the UK.
The US has the second most methane leaks, with 178. The US is a co-leader of the Global Methane Pledge, a group of 150 nations pledged to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Iran had the third highest notified leaks with 111.
“To have any chance of getting global warming under control, methane emissions must come down, and come down fast,” said Inger Andersen, Unep executive director. “There are often simple repairs. We are quite literally talking about screwing bolts tighter in some cases.”
“Governments and oil and gas companies must stop paying lip-service to this challenge when answers are staring them in the face,” she said. “Countries should understand that this is something that cannot be swept under the carpet. We will not relent.” Unep has now launched a public platform for its methane monitoring data, called “Eye on methane”.
Unep’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, which works with oil and gas companies to accurately measure and cut their methane emissions, has added 20 members over the past year, growing to 140 companies that cover more than 40% of global production.
Hello this is Matthew Taylor, taking over the liveblog from Bibi van der Zee. Please send your thoughts and suggestions my way, at matthew.taylor@theguardian.com
What if the US pulls out of the Paris agreement?
This is the question that everyone is asking. But, as my colleague Fiona Harvey points out, “we’ve been here before”.
Trump pulled out of the Paris agreement seven years ago, when he was president last time around, after all. The impact, she says, will be managed, and twin negotiating tracks will be set up to keep the US at least part of the process.
Yesterday our colleague Oliver Milman reported on the damage Trump could do to his own country if he tries to repeal major climate policies.
Trump’s promise to repeal major climate policies passed during Joe Biden’s presidency threatens to push $80bn of investment to other countries and cost the US up to $50bn in lost exports, the analysis found, surrendering ground to China and other emerging powers in the race to build electric cars, batteries, solar and wind energy for the world.
“The US will still install a bunch of solar panels and wind turbines, but getting rid of those policies would harm the US’s bid for leadership in this new world,” said Bentley Allan, an environmental and political policy expert at Johns Hopkins University, who co-authored the new study.
“The energy transition is inevitable and the future prosperity of countries hinges on being part of the clean energy supply chain,” he said. “If we exit the competition, it will be very difficult to re-enter.
Updated
There is more discussion at Cop today, according to my colleague Dharna Noor, about the worrying reports that Argentina’s leader Javier Millei is mulling over pulling out of the Paris agreement.
“We’re reevaluating our strategy on all matters related to climate change,” the country’s foreign minister, Gerardo Werthein, told The New York Times, adding that the country had fundamental doubts about what is driving climate change. The Washington Post also reported the news, citing an unnamed government official.The Argentinian embassy in Baku did not respond to a request for comment.
In the past Argentinian President Javier Milei has described climate change and the international effort to contain it as a “socialist lie.”
On Thursday, he met with Trump at the incoming president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Milei was the first head of state Trump received in person since winning the Nov. 5 election.
During his campaign, Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris deal. The U.S. left briefly during Trump’s first term. But no other countries followed.
Updated
For those interested in the finer nuance of China’s positions (ie all of us) Carbon Brief’s China briefing pulls together their statements at Cop and over the last few months in a way which is extremely useful.
China is clearly willing to push itself forward a bit more:
Wen Hua, deputy director-general of the Department of Resources Conservation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planner, told the methane event that “China is willing to take a more active role in global climate governance”.
But the divisions mentioned in the previous post, over whether China should still be making contributions as a developing country rather than a developed one (which would involve much heavier financial expectations) continue. Carbon Brief notes:
China entered the “finance COP” under pressure to play an upgraded role in climate finance, as “huge divisions” emerged over how much money should be paid into the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) and by whom, the Financial Times reported. Beijing has “firmly rejected” these calls, according to Agence France-Presse, which quoted a Chinese official “warning on Sunday during a closed-door session that the talks should not aim to ‘renegotiate’ existing agreements”. The state-run broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) quoted envoy Liu calling on “developed countries to take the lead in providing financial assistance to developing nations”.
But they do note that: “Speaking to Carbon Brief in May, Li Shuo, director at ASPI’s China climate hub, said that one possible solution, in his view, was to leverage China’s position as “the biggest solution provider” for low-carbon technologies to encourage it to “provide finance or facilitate investment” in developing countries’ energy transitions, allowing China to find a palatable role for itself in an outer layer of a potential “onion” structure for the NCQG.”
Updated
According to an interesting piece in the Africa Report, African countries at Cop are wary of alienating China.
But this year, the main issue at stake in the negotiations is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). In the jargon of climate finance, this is the amount that developed countries will have to provide to vulnerable countries to help them adapt to climate change.
When they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the developed countries undertook to allocate $100bn a year from 2020 onwards – via loans and grants – to finance projects that enable developing countries to adapt to climate change (rising sea levels, drought, etc.) or help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This amount was not reached until 2022, but is due to be renegotiated upwards this year.
The story reports that:
The developed countries are also lobbying to broaden the base of contributing countries to include the “new polluters”: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others. “The African Group will not be supporting this proposal, as it is too sensitive and we don’t want to alienate China,” says an African negotiator.
The African countries are also members of the G77, the group of developing countries to which China belongs.
“It’s a powerful group, so we can’t go off on our own, not to mention that it’s in the interests of individual African countries not to antagonise such a major trading partner and investor,” the negotiator adds.
Food prices at the conference spark frustration
There is always anger and outrage at injustice at climate Cops, but one target of this might surprise you – the outrageous price of the catering inside the closed conference.
Delegates needing perking up after a late night of negotiating have to shell out $10 for an Americano with soy milk. Think a single espresso might do the trick - $3.50 appears to be the cheapest coffee on offer. How about vitamin C boost? A small grapefruit juice is $11.
Those feeling peckish after hours trailing around the vast venue need to dig deep. At the budget end, a “chicken toast” sandwich is still $9.50, a beef bagel – with “canned beef” is $11 and a salmon buddha bowl is $16.50. A sweet treat to lift the mood? A small chocolate bar sets you back $5.50.
If it’s an actual meal that’s required, a frankly horrible “groot” vegan burger, fries and coke will dent your budget by $23. For comparison, you can get a whole pizza, soup, salad and soft drink for less than $10 in Baku city.
It is the most expensive catering the Guardian can remember at a Cop and can only be described as price-gouging exploitation of delegates trapped in the giant conference site all day. Returning to the city for a cheaper bite would involve at least 90 minutes of travel.
The issue is actually a serious one. Climate Cops are where every country in the world comes to make its case and many of those most affected by the climate crisis are poor. High costs mean they can bring few delegates, making their voices less heard, and that is unjust.
“It’s crazy – for one stupid sandwich, you pay the same as what we paid for the whole week [outside the conference],” says Sandra Guzman, from Mexico. “Outside the conference, everything is so cheap, and then you come here.”
“It’s not fair at all – not at all,” she said. “And this is precisely why delegations from smaller countries have only one or two people – they cannot afford it.” Rich country delegates run to hundreds and even thousands of delegates.
Some delegates have been forced to improvise. One South Pacific delegate has a half-eaten Pot Noodle on her desk, having been stung for $33 the previous day. She took warm water from a water fountain to make it. Even those from rich nations are unhappy. “It’s super super expensive,” said a US delegate. “That sandwich was $15 - I mean really!
Azerbaijani journalist, Oruj Alasgarov, has also been investigating the prices: “A lot of people are very angry.” The lack of the usual long queues at Coop for food and drink suggests many people are balking at the prices.
For any delegate feeling extremely flush there is a bar. Among the offerings there are a bottle of red wine – Solaia 2016 – for $1940. It appears to be available online for about $500. The cheapest red wine – Meyseri Mekhmeri – is a comparative snip at $74. There’s also Dom Perignom Brut champagne at $880 and the cheapest sparkling wine – Astoria brut – is $69.
If spirits are your thing, there’s Don Julio 1942 tequila at $80 a shot. How many of these extortionate drinks are being bought is unclear. Some bottles of champagne have shifted, the Guardian was told, but delegates have resisted the cognac on offer so far, priced at $35 -$80 a go.
Rapacious catering costs have been an issue at some previous summits. At Cop27 in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, protests at ludicrous prices led the organisers to halve the cost of the drinks and provide lower cost food options. The UN and Cop29 have been contacted for comment. They have already had to “highlight” the vegan and vegetarian food options available, after “queries”.
Updated
China has powered up the world’s largest open-sea offshore solar farm, according to Electrek. Power company CHN Energy has connected the first solar units from a one gigawatt (GW) offshore solar farm – the world’s first and largest of its kind – to the grid.
The massive project is located off the coast of Dongying City in Shandong Province, eastern China.
The project sits 8 km (5 miles) off the coast and spans an impressive 1,223 hectares (3,023 acres). It uses 2,934 solar platforms that rest on large-scale offshore steel truss foundations, each platform measuring 60m (197 feet) by 35m (115 feet).
It’s the first time in China that a 66-kilovolt offshore cable paired with an onshore cable has been used for high-capacity, long-distance electricity transmission in the solar sector.
Once completed, this offshore solar farm is expected to generate 1.78 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – enough to power around 2.67 million urban homes. It could also help save about 503,800 tons of standard coal and cut down carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1.34 million tons annually.
The project also includes fish farming, making better use of the marine space by integrating renewable energy with aquaculture.
'Fossil fuel industry has seized control of COP,' says Al Gore
More concern about whether Cop29 is really functioning properly. The wires are reporting that former US vice president Al Gore said yesterday: “It’s unfortunate that the fossil fuel industry and the petrostates have seized control of the COP process to an unhealthy degree.
While the Dubai summit produced a global agreement on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, the follow-up commitment “has been very weak” and the issue “is hardly even mentioned” at COP29, he said.
“I have to think that one of the reasons for that is that the petrostates have too much control over the process.”
Other critics have used even stronger language. Graham Gordon, Christian Aid’s Head of Global Advocacy, said that “having fossil fuel lobbyists at a climate summit is like inviting a drug dealer to a rehab centre.”
And David Tong from campaign group Oil Change International told AFP that “It’s like tobacco lobbyists at a conference on lung cancer.”
The frustration is palpable.
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My colleague George Monbiot has written about climate change, and about whether the Cop process is any use at all in dealing with this issue. He concludes … not.
Imagine, as many people do, an all-seeing eye in the sky, looking down on planet Earth. Imagine seeing what it sees. It watches, over the course of decades, ice caps shrinking, rainforests retreating, deserts expanding, ocean circulation slowing, freshwater dwindling and sea levels rising, and it thinks – for it has been there since the beginning – “this is familiar”. All the signs are there, of an Earth system sliding towards collapse, as it has done five times since animals with hard body parts first evolved…
The eye roams across the planet, seeking, in vain, actions commensurate with the scale of the hazard. It alights upon a capital of one of the industries driving this disaster, Baku in Azerbaijan. It finds, to its great surprise, that representatives of almost every government on Earth are gathering here – of all places – to discuss the great predicament. At last! But again, as it looks more closely, it notices weirdly conflicting signals. It sees a process that could scarcely be better designed to fail, and no serious attempt to reform it. It discovers that the event is chaired by a former executive of the oil industry. Well, at least this could be seen as an improvement on last year’s meeting, chaired by a serving executive of the oil industry. It finds that, yet again, this meeting looks more like a trade fair dominated by the interests it is supposed to curtail than a serious attempt to address the species’ greatest threat. Indeed, the Azerbaijani government has used the event to try to arrange new fossil fuel deals. It notices that some of the governments gathering in Baku are using the unravelling in the US as a licence to downgrade or abandon their own feeble efforts.
It discovers that the governments meeting there are prepared to consider any policy except those that might actually succeed: leaving fossil fuels in the ground and ending most livestock farming. Now they are betting on carbon markets: a futile, impossible attempt to offset with contemporary withdrawals from the atmosphere the hundreds of millions of years’ worth of carbon being brought to the surface.
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Europe is planning a sizeable expansion of its fossil gas capacities, a report has found, even as its politicians brandish their climate credentials at Cop29.
Europe is planning and building 80 gigawatts of fossil gas-fired power capacity, according to research from Beyond Fossil Fuels and Greenpeace. Half of the planned increase will come from just three countries, two of which - Italy and Germany - have promised to largely decarbonise their electricity grids by 2035. The third, the UK, is shooting for an even earlier date of 2030.
Alexandru Mustață, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said the plans were “dangerously out of step” with the countries’ climate targets.
“We didn’t enter the digital age by bulk-buying typewriters, and we won’t build a clean power system by constructing so many new gas plants,” he said.
Used sparingly, gas-fired power plants can be a helpful addition to an otherwise clean energy grid for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. But energy experts have warned against investing heavily in gas infrastructure that will sit unused if the continent meets its climate goals - or that will continue to burn fossils in large quantities if it does not.
Once new power plants are built, campaigners fear, there will be less incentive to build carbon-free sources of electricity at the rapid pace needed to keep the planet from heating 1.5C (2.7F).
The report comes in the same week that the European Commission announced a partnership with the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) at Cop29 to speed the shift towards fossil fuels. The EU is not part of the small group, though a handful of member states - Denmark, France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden - have signed up.
The group’s declaration warns that continued investment in oil and gas encourages “locking-in” high carbon pathways, “contributing to dangerous climate change, while at the same time increasing the risk of stranded assets.”
At least 1,773 lobbyists have been given access to Cop29
My colleague Dharna Noor has covered a new report which find that at least 1,773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. The report raises serious concerns about the planet-heating industry’s influence on the negotiations.
Those lobbyists outnumber the delegations of almost every country at the conference, the analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition shows, with the only exceptions being this year’s host country, Azerbaijan, next year’s host Brazil, and Turkey.
Sarah McArthur, an activist with the environmental group UK Youth Climate Coalition, which is a member of the KBPO coalition, said: “Cop29 kicked off with the revelation that fossil fuel deals were on the agenda, laying bare the ways that industry’s constant presence has delayed and weakened progress for years. The fossil fuel industry is driven by their financial bottom line, which is fundamentally opposed to what is needed to stop the climate crisis, namely, the urgent and just phaseout of fossil fuels.”
The 10 most climate-vulnerable nations have only a combined 1,033 delegates at the negotiations. “Industry presence is dwarfing that of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” the analysis says.
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Meanwhile extreme weather events continue to batter different regions of the world. Carmela Fonbuena has written for the Guardian about the repeated typhoons which have been hitting the Philippines, one after another.
Usagi is the fifth major storm to hit the Philippines in just three weeks, with a sixth forecast for this weekend. At least 160 people have been killed and nine million displaced, while the unusual frequency has left people already struggling with the aftermath of previous heavy rains and flooding little time to prepare for the next strike.
Fonbuena spoke to residents whose homes had been partially or completely destroyed.
Typhoon Yinxing tore off a quarter of Diana Moraleda’s tiled roof in Tuguegaro City in northern Philippines last week. The gaping hole was still there when Typhoon Toraji brought rains over the weekend and when Typhoon Usagi made landfall late on Thursday.
“It’s difficult because many houses were devastated by [Yinxing]. The carpenters themselves are still fixing their own homes. It’s hard to find workers,” Moraleda said.
She spoke to other residents too.
Raffy Magno and his family lost nearly everything they owned when flood waters reached the second storey of their home in Bicol’s Naga City. Miraculously, their refrigerator sprang back to life once dried, but everything else, including appliances, furniture, clothing, and important documents, was destroyed.
“It was the shock of our lives. While we are so used to typhoons, even to floods, we never really expected the extent of the damage,” Magno said.
Even the Philippines’ president, Ferdinand Marcos, has admitted feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of extreme weather. A clip has gone viral of the president saying “I’m feeling a little helpless here” after finding out that government relief could not cross flooded highways.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a Filipino climate justice activist, says climate change is undeniable.
“If you still do not think that climate change exists, look to your neighbours; look to your countries. It’s happening across the world,” she said.
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Friday at Cop29
Today is “peace, relief and recovery” day at Cop29 in Baku, a fitting theme for a year in which horrific violence has hit millions in countries such as Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and the DRC.
Researchers suggest that climate change has fuelled some major conflicts in recent history, though they are quick to stress it is just one factor among many. Increasingly scarce water supplies are among the risks for future wars – a finding that may be of particular concern to host country Azerbaijan, which depends on upstream sources outside of its borders for most of its water. (For a small note of hope: as economies switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, conflicts over energy resources may well decline.)
Many world leaders took note of the aggression rocking the world in their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday. Leaders from across the geopolitical divide, such as Belarus and the EU, spoke about violent imperialism and the need for peace. Several leaders criticised Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the muted international response.
“How can we work together for our shared future when some are deemed unworthy of life?” asked the crown prince of Jordan, Al Hussein bin Abdullah II. He was one of the few to draw an explicit link between war and climate, explaining how conflict compounds the environmental threats that people face. It’s a problem felt particularly acutely in Jordan, where refugees make up an estimated one-third of the population.
Azerbaijan has framed the whole summit as a “peace” Cop, eager to paint the country in a positive light after the blood shed in Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Whether the spin will encourage great cooperation in Baku on climate is yet to be seen.
Negotiations are otherwise inching forward, and a flurry of reports came out yesterday that may shape the deals done behind closed doors. It kicked off with the powerful finding that poor countries need $1 trillion a year in climate finance by 2030 – five years earlier than rich countries are likely to agree to, as my colleague Fiona Harveyexplained. Taxing crypto and petroleum-based plastics could be one of many creative sources of finance with serious backers, another report noted.
Yalchin Rafiyev, Cop29’s lead negotiator, described the text on the pivotal climate finance goal as “a workable basis for discussion for the first time in the three years of the technical process.” Others seem more sceptical.
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Is the Cop system no longer 'fit for purpose'?
Good morning! This is Bibi van der Zee, and we’ll be live blogging the events of the day at Cop29.
It’s day five, and things are beginning to get a little testy, after some extremely highly esteemed Cop watchers declared that the current system is no longer ‘fit for purpose’.
My colleague Fiona Harvey has written about their criticisms:
Future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying, according to a group of influential climate policy experts.
The group includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the prominent climate scientist Johan Rockström.
They have written to the UN demanding the current complex process of annual “conferences of the parties” under the UN framework convention on climate change – the Paris agreement’s parent treaty – be streamlined, and meetings held more frequently, with more of a voice given to developing countries.
“It is now clear that the Cop is no longer fit for purpose. We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” they wrote.
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