https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-trade-worries-cloud-cop29-climate-summit-baku-2024-11-11/
By Valerie Volcovici and Nailia Bagirova
- Two-week COP29 climate summit opens in Azerbaijan
- Delegates fret over U.S. commitment after Trump elected
- China pushes for trade, tariff discussions
- Biden, Chinese and European presidents set to stay away
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BAKU, Nov 11 (Reuters) – The annual U.N. climate summit began on Monday with some prominent leaders planning to skip the event ahead of tough talks on finance and trade, after a year of weather disasters that have emboldened developing countries’ demands for cash.Delegates gathering in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, hope to resolve the COP29 summit’s top agenda item – a deal for up to $1 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries, replacing a target of $100 billion.“Let’s dispense with the idea that climate finance is charity,” U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said at the Baku Stadium venue. “An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”But the financing goal is competing for attention with economic concerns, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the election of Donald Trump, a climate-change denier, for a second term as president of the United States, the world’s biggest economy.Political leaders expected to stay away include U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.The Caspian Sea nation, which is home to the world’s first oil wells, faces pressure to make progress on last year’s COP28 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels.Azerbaijan’s oil and gas revenues accounted for 35% of its economy in 2023, down from 50% two years earlier. The government says these revenues will decline to 22% by 2028.…
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Trump has called climate change a hoax and said he will again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the global treaty to reduce planet-warming emissions, which he did during his first stint in the White House.
