Journalist Krys Cerisier attended the COP29 climate conference, where they reported and conducted interviews with activists from around the world demanding funding for climate solutions from the Global North nations most responsible for creating the climate crisis.
Climate activists are considering throwing in the COP towel after negotiations led to a poor budget deal, with activists walking away with only $300 billion of their $1 trillion goal after this year's dubbed 'finance’ COP.
The 29th annual Conference Of Parties, or COP29 was created to facilitate international cooperation over ways to keep the global average temperature rise close to 1.5 degrees C. However, climate activists are now arguing that the process is instead a way for fossil fuel industries to protect their interests.
While at COP, climate activist and five time COP attendee Xiye Bastida explained, “It's no mistake that the last three COPs have been in oil [rich] countries. It's no mistake that those countries have the power to write the text of the final decisions… They are holding the COPs in oil countries because they want to water down the language we are using.”
COP is the decision making body for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that requires all nations signed on to this convention to agree to participate in these negotiations and follow through on agreed upon climate commitments, which it continues to struggle to accomplish.
This year’s COP, similar to last year’s in the United Arab Emirates, was surrounded by controversy, with many people pointing to Azerbaijan’s violent human rights record and history of genocide, but also 90% of its export revenue coming from oil and gas, according to the International Energy Agency. This year’s COP also had an estimated 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, according to an investigation done by the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, which made many climate activists disillusioned at the idea of any potential climate solutions. “...why would you invite the very people responsible for the climate crisis to a conference that aims to address a crisis they created?” asked youth climate activist Jax Bongon.
Both countries and organizations are calling out COP29, with significant voices like the Pacific Island nation Papua New Guinea boycotting the conference altogether, with Prime Minister Marape stating, “Our non-attendance this year will signal our protest at the big nations – these industrialised nations who are big carbon footprint holders for their lack of quick support to those who are victims of climate change, and those of us who are forest and ocean nations.” Many climate activists even attended the counter ANTICOP conference in Oaxaca, Mexico, instead.
This controversy follows last year's COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), another major oil and gas producer that failed to follow through on its own commitments to combat climate change. The UAE put the management of COP28 in the hands of Sultan Al Jaber, head of the 12th largest oil company in the world, who put strict regulations on the language that could be used in negotiations, such as “phase out” and “eliminate,” further fueling legitimacy allegations over whether COP can successfully address the climate crisis.
The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev addressed these controversies and backlash around the country’s fossil fuel and gas interest in his opening statement at COP29, blaming a “coordinated well orchestrated campaign of slander…Western fake news media and so-called independent NGOs and some politicians, as if they were competing in spreading disinformation.” Aliyev also reinforced his commitment to oil and gas, calling the resources “ a gift from God”.
The start of the two-week-long negotiations continued with contradictions as President Aliyev’s was then followed by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who emphasized that all agreements coming out of COP29 should “cover all emissions and the whole economy, accelerate fossil fuel phase out, and contribute to the energy transition goals agreed at COP28.”
Dubbed the ‘finance COP’, in this year’s round of negotiations by countries who are most susceptible to the impacts of climate change and do not have financial means to prepare for a crisis they hardly contribute to, were demanding that countries with significant fossil fuels and CO2 emissions pay their fair share in funding climate solutions. The amount of their financial assistance request was $1 trillion.
“The demand is to push negotiators here to finalize a loss and damages deal, global climate finance deal with sufficient funds to really tackle the climate crisis and to compensate the Global South and poorer countries for the impact of a crisis they did not create but are reaping the ill fruits of,” states Khaled Diab with the Carbon Market Watch.
According to the International Monetary Fund, fossil fuel subsidies added up to $7 trillion, and climate activists demanded $1 trillion to address the damage done to the climate. However, when negotiations ended, activists walked away with only $300 billion secured in the form of grants and low interest loans. These numbers pale in comparison to the budgets and profits of some of the largest fossil fuel and CO2 institutions, the U.S. The Department of Defence, for example, which is the number one institutional consumer of hydrocarbons, maintains an annual budget of over $849.8 billion.
Many Global South activists, specifically women and Indigenous community leaders, are calling out the fact that communities that are at the forefront of climate displacement due to extraction practices from fossil fuel companies or increasingly dangerous natural disasters have virtually no negotiating or decision making powers.
While addressing the UNFCCC Secretariat, the Fijian delegation representative Lavenia Naivalu called out the hypocrisy, “Sir, for 28 years we entrusted you to address the crisis of climate, biodiversity and pollution. Problems not of our own making but of yours. And for 28 years, all we got were empty promises while we watched our people, our islands, and oceans suffer. You chose profit and personal gain over people. You presume to know better than those of us at the grassroots level.”.
However, despite this rise in tension between the conflicting interests of climate activists and fossil fuel lobbyists, many activists still see the value in attending COP.
“...I don’t think that's the right conversation to be having… I think for all its flaws, it does have some benefits, and we would notice that in a world in which it is absent…We need people on the outside shouting in, but we also need to be in the corridors too, shouting from the inside because otherwise, they won't hear us.” says climate activist Diab.
Next year’s COP30, which is to be dubbed ‘culture COP’, is set to take place in Belém, the heart of Brazil’s Amazon. This is especially important in a region where Indigenous and Black climate activists face the highest rates of assassinations and are supposed to be at the forefront of negotiations. However, activists continue to lose faith, as without any real decision making power, their demands remain second to profit.
Krys Cerisier is a Haitian Panamanian journalist based out of the Bronx. Cerisier works in international reporting and covers U.S. militarism and climate change in Latin America and Caribbean. Cerisier can be contacted at [email protected]
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