UN climate deal success, but 3 key questions remain unanswered

The UN climate conference, COP29, ended with the rich countries promising $300bn (about £240bn) a year in finance to help developing countries deal with the problems of a warmer world.

The money is an improvement on the current contribution of $100bn (£79.8bn) a year but many of the poorer countries complained that it was not enough and fell well short of the $1.3 trillion they wanted.

However, the summit of 200 countries in Azerbaijan, which ran 33 hours late and came within inches of collapse, still left three key questions unanswered, said Midlands green energy expert Ron Fox.

He said the first unanswered question was how would the money be split between those countries with such differing needs?

A total of 23 countries will give the cash, including the UK, the EU, Japan and the US, while those receiving it include African, South America and Southern Hemisphere countries.

Ron said the problem was that landlocked countries in Africa and South America suffered from severe droughts and floods whereas Tuvalu and other small island nations faced rising sea levels from melting glaciers which one day would mean their entire country was submerged.

He said it was vital wealthier nations help emerging economies cut their carbon dioxide, because that is where 75 per cent of the growth in emissions had occurred in the past decade.

The second question was what part would two of the biggest countries play, America and China?

US President Donald Trump, who will take office in January 2025, is a climate sceptic who has said he will take the US out of the 2015 UN landmark Paris agreement which created a roadmap for nations to tackle climate change.

It was interesting, said Ron, that negotiators in Baku were acutely aware that Trump would not pay a penny and they would have to make up the shortfall.

So, the richer nations agreed to commit to raising funding by 2035 which would allow the US to contribute again once President Trump had left office.

With the role of the US in future climate talks in doubt, attention shifted to who might become the real climate leader over the next four years. And the spotlight fell on China.

The world’s largest carbon emitter was largely silent at this year’s COP, only showing its hand to give details for the first time on the amount of climate finance it gives to developing countries.

China is still defined by the United Nations as a “developing” country, meaning it has no formal obligation to cut greenhouse gas emissions or provide financial help to poorer countries.

But Ron said that it was very encouraging that China had agreed to a formula in the finance deal that would allow its contributions to be counted in the overall fund for climate-vulnerable countries, on a voluntary basis.

The third question was how does the world move away from fossil fuels, despite the agreement struck at the COP28 talks in Dubai last year on this?

Azerbaijan, which says it wants to expand gas production by up to a third in the next decade, and the United Arab Emirates, have both hosted COP talks and have economies built on oil and gas exports. Also, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Group said at the summit that they would not agree to any text that targets specific sectors, including fossil fuels.

But Ron said new national plans are due to be published next spring, as agreed at the 2015 Paris conference, to outline how every country will limit their planet warming gases over the next 10 years.

“Hopefully, there will be international agreement in time for next year COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, where President Lula has made strong commitments to climate change and to reducing deforestation in the globally important Amazon rainforest,” concluded Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park.

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