COP29 Opens with a Mention of Valencia

The lights of the Baku Olympic Stadium are on, but this time not to illuminate the green field or the red track where athletes race against the clock in the 100 meters. This time, the lights shine on the delegates of the 198 parties that make up the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Baku takes over from Dubai with many pending tasks.

"In recent years we have taken some historic steps," said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. Almost a year ago, COP28 began with an unprecedented event: the approval of a loss and damage fund. The delegates had not even sat at the table when the first big applause came. This year, the agreement has come with the adoption of the agenda to be negotiated over the next ten days.

An advance that a few months ago seemed complicated. Mid-year, the preCOP showed the great differences between the parties. Stiell warned: "There is a very steep mountain to climb." From those two weeks in Germany "many issues remained unresolved." Today he warned: "We cannot leave Baku without a substantial result. Aware of the importance of this moment, the Parties must act accordingly." "What was seen in Valencia and elsewhere are examples of global warming," recalled COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev in his opening speech.

In this new climate meeting, the nearly 200 parties will debate and try to agree on a financial target for the adaptation and mitigation of climate change effects. An amount that increasingly adds zeros to the right. In 2009, in Copenhagen, the $100 billion to be paid among the most polluting countries was established, a figure that was only met in 2023. In the Pacific alone, the cost of climate disasters has doubled in recent years. "The needs are in trillions, but the realistic level of public finances is in hundreds of billions," highlighted Babayev.

With the gavel strike, COP29 gets underway and now is the time for bilateral, multilateral meetings, pressures, tensions, and many proposals. "I wish you the best of luck," al-Yaber advanced in his last speech from the podium.

If last year, doubts about the role of al-Yaber, president of COP28, hovered over every intervention and gesture of the presidency; this year the same happens. "Third year that the climate summit is held in a petrostate," climate activists constantly denounce.

And the anger grows after a recording revealed by the BBC and Global Witness showed the executive director of the climate summit, Elnur Soltanov, apparently accepting to facilitate agreements on fossil fuels. "We have many gas fields to exploit and many possibilities for commercial alliances," he states in the recording.

Azerbaijan, and more specifically its capital, Baku, became the world's oil epicenter in the second half of the 19th century. In the early 20th century, Absheron produced more crude than the entire United States and became the place to control during the World Wars of the last century. Now, the Caucasian country is one of the major gas suppliers, even for the European Union after the start of the war in Ukraine.

But the dependence on fossil fuels is not the only blemish that climate activists point to the presidency, the defense of human rights is the other major black mark on Azerbaijan's record. Conflicts with Armenia and some detentions of opponents have led many European leaders to reject the invitation to the world leaders' summit that begins this Tuesday - a meeting that Pedro Sánchez will attend. "We will build the necessary bridges to walk the path together," defended the president of COP29. Now it remains to be seen how strong its pillars are and the distance it allows to travel. In the distance, 1.5 degrees, 2030, and 2100. For now, the steps taken point to 3.1 degrees in 2100.