The news around the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan has been predictable. The host country has revealed to the world that it has little or no interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and there will be minimal progress on international agreements.

This is the third time in 3 years that the meeting has been held in a country with a bad human rights record, and the second time in a row in a country heavily dependent on oil and gas.

The chief executive of COP29 and deputy minister of energy for Azerbaijan was caught trying to strike an oil export deal just before the conference. The president of the country has praised oil and gas as a “gift from God”, and dismissed reports of greenhouse gas emissions from the country as “fake news”. And NGOs have accused the government of using the summit to crack down on opposition.
These awkward events have led international climate notables to call for an end to holding summits in countries with no regard for climate action.

Weak governments

Of course, the problems with COP meetings go much deeper than diplomatic and public relations embarrassments. Intensifying globalization has produced immensely powerful corporations, of which fossil fuel corporations form a significant proportion. At the same time, production has become distributed across the globe, weakening supervision and regulation by governments.

In the sphere of international relations, national governments dance to the tune of “their” corporations and businesses. The political calculation of government leaders is that their short term interests are tied to the fortunes of the largest and most powerful businesses in their countries. The way that the Azerbaijan government and its oil industry are embedded in each other is an extreme example of how capitalist economies operate across the world.

Conflict and deadlock

International agreements are dependent on a critical number of national governments believing that their economies (and hence governments) will benefit from an agreement.

To get agreement from 190 countries, each with their own particular strategic short term interests, is only made possible by organized lobbies and coalitions of regional and interest groups. Each of these groups negotiates to minimize any negative impacts to member countries. Directly opposing interests frequently produce conflict and deadlock.

It is clear that the annual COP summits are not about to produce agreements that will get the planet on a track to sustainability. The COP29 summit has been called the “Finance COP”, because of the hopes that it will produce an agreement on climate finance for middle income and poor countries. But it is absolutely certain that the wealthy countries will not agree to anything close to the trillions of dollars required by the poorer countries.

Climate finance

An “Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance”, established last year, delivered a report to COP29, purporting to show the feasibility of generating the trillions of dollars needed for a just transition away from fossil fuels, and paying for the damaging effects of climate change. Even though the trillions mentioned in the report are far from sufficient, the assumption in the report is that most of the money would come from loans, many of these from private sources. This is pure fantasy. There is no possibility that poor countries, many already heavily indebted, would be able to repay this kind of funding. African and other poor countries have heavily criticized the feeble plans coming from the US and Europe.

But for all the shortcomings of these annual COP summits, they are the only forums at which combating climate change is addressed at a global level. Climate NGOs have little alternative if they want to put pressure on governments for global action.

COP30 next year will be held in Brazil, where there will be much more freedom for NGOs and left organizations to lobby and protest. Preparations are starting already.