Cop29 in Baku Optimists hope for progress in spite of US shift in direction

Optimists hope for progress in spite of US shift in direction

- Fiona Harvey

More than 100 heads of state and government are expected to land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, over the next few days, and the first thing they are likely to notice is the smell of oil. Flaring from refineries in the centre of the city lights up the night sky, while the capital itself is dotted with diminutive "nodding donkey" oil wells, raising and lowering their pistons as they draw the liquid from the earth. Even the national symbol is a gas flame.

Azerbaijan was built on oil, and fossil fuels make up 90% of its exports. There could be no starker reminder of the core question world leaders have come to Baku to decide: whether the planet will burn so fossil fuel producers can continue to make money, or whether they will take a different path.

That the world's biggest economy, the US, is about to shift away from the focus on clean energy fostered by the outgoing president, Joe Biden, towards the "drill, baby, drill" policies of Donald Trump will be the main topic of conversation for the tens of thousands of delegates at the Cop29 UN climate meeting.

However, many will point out that no country in the world has ever in history produced as much oil and gas as the US does now, with 20% more oil and gas licences issued during the Biden administration than during Trump's first term.

Climate leaders around the world reacted to the US election defiantly. "The result from this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action, but it cannot and will not halt the changes under way to decarbonise the economy and meet the goals of the Paris agreement," declared Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief and cofounder of the Global Optimism thinktank.