COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has ended. Inger Andersen, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), called for “A new push to protect water, our most valuable resource”, when she launched the Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action to “strengthen the water dimension in the global climate agenda”.
But COP29 was not about water, not even about climate. It was mainly about money. And so was Inger Andersen’s speech, calling for “governments to catalyse investment in water”. But the rich countries and representatives of global corporations present in Baku were obviously not prepared to fulfil this wish.
In his closing statement on COP29, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the result of COP29 saying: “I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome – on both finance & mitigation – to meet the scale of the great challenge we face, but the agreement reached provides a base on which to build.”
A base to build on? Well, it sure is the base the next COP has to build on. But can we build on it? To be honest: this base is too little, too late. Whatever the amount of money promised would have been, the gap between the will to take action and the consequences of the climate disaster is widening by the day. Emissions are still rising, not falling. Billions are being spent on cleaning up after increasingly frequent and deadly disasters, on technical measures that make money for companies but do little to solve or even confront the problems (desalination, carbon capture etc.). We are still heating up the planet and accelerating the destruction of our own livelihoods. International conferences under the control of oil producers and corporate representatives will not change that.
So was it worth it? Was it worth all the time, energy, money and natural resources spent by all the people – including NGO representatives – who went to Baku for this outcome? Peter D Carter, Director of the Climate Emergency Institute and IPCC expert reviewer, called it the “COP29 MONUMENTAL EVIL SWINDLE” and stated:
Developed countries have not promised, pledged or committed to transfer any money. They have not said they are obligated/required to do so. This reinforces global climate global suicide.”
He also states that Saudi Arabia Arab Group kept fossil fuels out of final texts. “Arab group will not accept any text that targets specific sectors, including fossil fuels,” Saudi group.
But even if the so-called developed countries paid every amount rightly demanded by the Global South, it would be nothing more than an absolution for them to continue polluting. It would not stop them from destroying the planet for profit. As long as the gap widens and no action is taken to reverse the consequences of man-made climate change, there is little hope for the better. At least not from this kind of international conferences.
My takeaway (again): Instead of wasting resources and pinning our hopes on these international conferences, we can make a difference by acting where we are. We can make the world green and blue again by our own actions. We can drain the local swamp on which the global machinery is built. City by city, university by university, institutions and organizations, one by one. “Think global, act local? Yes and no. We must think and act locally, because that is where we can make a difference. But we must also think and act globally, because we cannot leave it to the states and their interests. The Blue Community is one of the networks to think and act – locally and globally. Join in. Let us turn the world blue!
Roland Brunner
