Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 President, speaks during the opening plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, November 11, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan
THE Cop29 climate summit, which began in Azerbaijani capital Baku today, will hear the usual soaring rhetoric, urgent pleas and pledges of co-operation contrasting with political changes, wars and economic hardship across the world.
But one of the central tasks in Baku, where the world’s first oil well was drilled, will be to reach a deal to help developing nations transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and towards clean energy, while providing compensation for climate-related disasters mostly triggered by carbon pollution from rich nations and ensuring adaptation to future extreme weather.
Summit president Mukhtar Babayev said that the 29th United Nations Conference of the Parties “is a moment of truth for the Paris Agreement,” which in 2015 set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above the level of pre-industrial times.
As the Alliance of Sahel States and southern African nations advance pan-African goals, the African Union must listen and learn rather than parroting the Western line on these positive developments, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Money makers already exploit cleaning and catering contracts while the military-industrial complex diverts billions from health to warfare — but Bevan’s vision will endure as long as people fight for it, writes ROGER MCKENZIE
