by Ben Wilson

COP29 drew to a close in the early hours of Sunday 24 November. Following a tense final few hours in which the poorest countries stepped away from the negotiating table, furious at being cut out of discussions, a deal was eventually reached.

COP29 will go down in history as one of the most chaotic meetings of its kind. The deal reached to provide $300bn per year in climate finance by 2035 has been panned as deeply inadequate and misleading. The agreed COP29 texts allows for most  this money to come in the form of private sector loans, which go a long way towards deepening the debt crisis in already struggling countries, and go no way towards addressing the injustice of the climate crisis. Without urgent action, COP29 could be remembered as a key moment when full global cooperation on climate began to crumble. We must not let that happen.

Global cooperation under threat

Coming into this COP,  just a few days after Donald Trump’s election in the US,  hopes were not high. The atmosphere in Baku from the beginning was subdued, with many mutterings in corridors between long-time followers of this process that they have never known such divergence of views. In the formal negotiations and public meetings of climate campaigners, there was a determination to stay hopeful. Behind closed doors, hope was in short supply.

There was a risk, coming to Baku, that this COP could end up as another example on a mounting list of global events which signal a breakdown in global cooperation.  Complete collapse might take us back ten  years in climate policy. The Trump election alongside wars in Ukraine and Gaza all suggest a dangerous trend towards aggressive nationalism and disregard of global laws, norms and values.

Dr Ben Wilson is Director of Public Engagement at SCIAF.

Photo courtesy of SCIAF