By Valerie Volcovici, Nailia Bagirova and Kate Abnett
BAKU (Reuters) – U.S. climate envoy John Podesta on Monday urged governments to keep faith in the country’s pledge to fight global warming. He said Donald Trump can slow, not stop, the transition away from fossil fuels when he returns to office in January.
The annual U.N. climate summit kicked off Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan, with many country delegations concerned that Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5 would hamper progress in limiting planetary warming.
Trump has pledged to once again remove the United States, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, from international climate cooperation and maximize the country’s already record-high fossil fuel production.
“For those of us committed to climate action, last week’s outcome in the United States is obviously bitterly disappointing,” Podesta said at the summit.
“But what I want to tell you today is that while the United States federal government under Donald Trump may be putting climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change in the United States will continue.”
He said the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation that provides billions of dollars in clean energy subsidies, would continue to boost investment in solar, wind and other technologies, and that US state governments would also make emissions reductions . regulation.
“I don’t think this is all reversible. Can it be slowed down? Maybe. But the direction is clear,” he said.
Although Trump has pledged to repeal the IRA, that would require an act of Congress — and that could be elusive due to support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts benefit from IRA-related investments.
AGENDA CRUSHED
In addition to the US elections, the talks in Baku are competing for attention due to economic concerns and wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
That complicates the summit’s ambition to resolve its priority agenda item: an agreement for up to $1 trillion in annual climate financing for developing countries, replacing a $100 billion target.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell tried to increase the momentum.
“Let’s move away from the idea that climate finance is charity,” he said at the Baku Stadium. “An ambitious new climate finance target is entirely in the self-interest of every country, including the largest and richest.”
This year is on track to be the warmest on record. Both rich and poor countries have been challenged by extreme weather events, including flooding in Africa, the Spanish coast and the US state of North Carolina, and droughts gripping South America, Mexico and the western US.
But even agreeing on one of COP29’s first tasks proved challenging: the agenda for the negotiations was pushed back by more than five hours before being approved.
Four sources with knowledge of the closed-door discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the European Union and small island states had demanded countries discuss how to build on last year’s deal to transition away from fossil fuels .
The fossil fuel-producing Gulf states wanted to limit discussions to elements of last year’s COP28 agreement related to finance, the sources said.
Ultimately, the countries agreed to discuss the COP28 agreement, but left open what these talks would focus on.
They also endorsed a set of carbon credit quality standards seen as crucial to launching a UN-backed global carbon market to finance projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
And countries sidestepped a row over trade tensions after China asked for concerns about some countries’ trade policies to be included on the COP29 agenda. Beijing withdrew its proposal and instead settled for informal talks on the issue with Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency.
Trade has gained importance as an issue for China, which already faces EU tariffs, due to Trump’s campaign promise to impose 20% tariffs on all foreign goods, and 60% on Chinese goods.
Many are also concerned that the US withdrawal could lead other countries to backtrack on existing climate pledges or scale back future ambitions.
“People will say, the US is the second largest emitter. It’s the largest economy in the world… If they don’t set themselves an ambitious target, why should we?” Marc Vanheukelen, EU climate ambassador from 2019 to 2023, told Reuters.
Podesta said China, currently the world’s largest emitter, has an obligation to go a step further, including by developing a plan to reduce emissions that is in line with the Paris Agreement target 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“They have an important role to play and I hope they play it,” Podesta said.
Host country Azerbaijan has lobbied governments to accelerate their transition to clean energy, while touting gas as a transition fuel. Oil and gas revenues accounted for 35% of the economy in 2023, up from 50% two years earlier. The government says these revenues will fall to 22% by 2028.
President Ilham Aliyev has called Azerbaijan’s abundance of fossil fuels “a gift from God,” and Baku has proposed setting up a climate finance organization. Action (WA:) Fund to voluntarily raise up to $1 billion from mining companies in ten countries, including Azerbaijan.
