Dubai passes climate torch to Azerbaijan as COP29 opens

A year after the UAE hosted the annual United Nations environmental summit, the torch passed today to Azerbaijan as officials and activists from 197 nations converged on the capital city of Baku for the two-week event known as COP29.

Opening the conference was COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, who said the earth is on a “road to ruin” and beseeched delegates to embrace U.N. goals for transition from fossil fuels. “COP29 is the unmissable moment to chart a new path forward for everyone,” he said.

The focus of this year’s climate summit is finance as estimates for the cost of building out clean energy systems, making cities more resilient to extreme weather, and transitioning factories and transportation systems away from fossil fuels run into trillions of dollars, The New York Times reports.

Much of the attention, however, is on what to expect from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a hoax. Also stirring controversy is Azerbaijan’s economic dependence on oil production, which is drawing protests similar to those against the UAE last year at COP28.

Countries will present their updated national climate action plans, which detail how they plan to reduce emissions. At the end of the conference, which closes on Nov. 22, negotiators will try to ratify a final agreement that will include new commitments to address climate change.

More than 100 heads of state and government were planning to attend, including the leaders of Barbados, Finland, Greece, Kenya, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan. Skipping the event is U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as the leaders of China, India, Brazil, Britain, Germany and France.

Among the speakers at today’s opening event was Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, who was President of COP28. He is also CEO of Abu Dhabi-based national energy company ADNOC and the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology.

“I urge you all to prove once again that we can unite, act and deliver,” Al Jaber said. “Let positivity prevail and let it power the process.”

UAE’s climate summit chief pledges ‘brutally honest’ assessment on missed goals

With less than five months until the COP28 environmental summit opens in Dubai, the event’s Emirati leader, Sultan Al Jaber, pledged to confront the world’s slow response to global warming.

Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Al Jaber, president-designate of the United Nations climate change conference that will be hosted by the UAE, said more pressure will be applied on governments to accelerate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He also laid out the schedule for the two-week event that opens Nov. 30 and will include the participation of some 200 countries.

“We must be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today,” Jaber told climate ministers and senior officials from the European Union, the U.S., China and other G20 countries. “Then we must apply a far-reaching, forward-looking, action-oriented and comprehensive response to address these gaps practically.”

Jaber, who is also head of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, said delegates at the conference will engage in a “global stocktake” that will indicate how far their countries lag behind goals for reduced fossil fuel use and making the transition to renewable energy production.

The stocktake exercise addresses the recognition that the current pace of replacing carbon-based fuels is insufficient to meet the target set in the U.N.’s 2015 Paris Agreement that would try to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels.

“Today I am calling on all of us to disrupt business as usual, unite around decisive action and achieve game-changing results,” he said. “We need to challenge old models that were built for the last century. We need to break down silos that are slowing progress. And we need to bridge divides that are blocking critical breakthroughs.”

Some members of Congress and European legislators have attacked the choice of Al Jaber to preside over COP28 given his company’s prominence in the fossil fuel industry. The appointment was defended by John Kerry, the White House special envoy for climate, who said Al Jaber’s connection to the industry and his role in the UAE government will make the conference more effective. Al Jaber said in Brussels that he will arrange meetings between heads of the major oil companies, government leaders, the U.N. and international energy agencies. 

Al Jaber, who serves as chairman of Masdar, the UAE’s alternative fuel company,  called for a tripling of the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030 and a doubling of energy efficiency. He said all governments are being encouraged to update their emissions-cutting targets by September. The UAE’s climate ministry last month said it planned a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, raising its previous goal of 31%.

In response to growing complaints about the costs of energy transition, Al Jaber called on international financial institutions to provide more funds to help poorer countries address climate change.

He said the conference would be built around four pillars: “Fast-tracking the energy transition, fixing climate finance, focusing on lives and livelihoods, and making COP28 fully inclusive.”