Cop out Odour of oil and return of Trump hang heavy over summit

When more than 100 heads of state and government landed in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan this week the first thing they are likely to have noticed is the smell of oil. Flaring from refineries lights up the night sky, and the city is dotted with "nodding donkey" oil wells drawing from the earth. Even the national symbol is a gas flame.

- Fiona Harvey

Azerbaijan has been 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 to 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 Joe Biden towards the "drill, baby, drill" policies of Donald Trump will be a main topic of conversation for the tens of thousands of delegates at the Cop29 UN climate summit. However, many will point out that no country has ever 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 reacted defiantly to the US election outcome. "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 who is a co-founder of the Global Optimism thinktank.

Trump will not be at Cop29, a fortnight-long meeting that is the latest in a series stretching back to 1992 when the UN framework convention on climate change the parent treaty to the 2015 Paris climate agreement - was signed.

Those talks may appear to have achieved little, as greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and the losses from extreme weather are becoming daily more apparent. Last year was the hottest on record and this year is likely to be hotter still.