COP29 delegates leave summit with a bad aftertaste

In Azerbaijan, the oil is cheap, the skyscrapers are shaped like fire and donuts, and the ruling elite have got rich quick from its abundant fossil fuels. It could be the Dubai of the Caspian Sea.

This former Soviet state is blessed with such abundant fossil fuels it oozes out of the soil, and in some places has been burning for decades.

On a still day, the smell and taste of oil from the dozens of oil wells engulfing Baku catch in the back of your throat.

Delegates at the COP29 climate summit are now leaving the country with a bad aftertaste for another reason.

Rich countries that have done far more to cause climate change just agreed to channel $300bn a year by 2035 to developing nations that are footing the bill for more savage droughts and floods.

The deal came as a relief after talks almost collapsed. And it sounds like a staggering sum of money.

But it is a drop in the warming ocean of the $1.3trn that everyone at COP29 accepts developing countries urgently need so they can both curb climate change and cope with its impacts.

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The $300bn figure looks smaller still when you consider it is just a third of the US defence budget.

It is only about 4% of the money the world pays to subsidise fossil fuels. Countries including the UK are trying to reform financial systems to send money to clean energy instead. It’s a slow process.

By 2035, given inflation, the $300bn will seem even less.

The shortfall of at least $1trn will lead to an “unacceptable” number of deaths, as one negotiator put it.

Another nail in the coffin for the Paris Agreement

That sounds dramatic, but it’s what the science says. The less spent, the more people are likely to die because the weather is worse and protections are worse. And the more people will leave their homes or their countries – that’s why rich countries also see this as an investment in security and migration.

It is also another nail in the coffin for the 1.5C global warming target set in the Paris Agreement, which scientists this year have all but declared dead. Because developing countries need that money to help them switch from fossil fuel to clean power, which is expensive upfront even though it saves money in the long run.

Yet it’s also true that tight public finances, a swing to the right politically and inflation in many rich countries make any figure a hard sell at home.

Even though for places like the UK the money is already allocated: it comes out of the aid budget.

It’s a slightly easier sell to the electorate that UK, EU, and US succeeded in getting China to pay in, something it was kind of doing already but just wasn’t counted.

And the $300bn is not all from public coffers, it also comes from banks and beyond.

A victory for multilateralism

Despite all of these shortcomings, this COP summit inside a windowless tent in Baku Stadium was at least a victory for multilateralism, when the world outside is so dangerously fractured.

A rare moment when warring countries – including Russia and Ukraine – come together to agree on something.

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But the fact COP decisions are based on consensus, meaning any country can veto them, also means they tend to move at the pace of the least ambitious.

Many foreigners were at least cheered by the phenomenal warmth and generosity of Baku’s people – if only COP summits were a little more like everyday Azerbaijanis.