‘We lost’: How COP29 ended with a deal that made the whole world unhappy
Two weeks ago, diplomats from almost 200 countries arrived at a sports stadium on the outskirts of Baku, Azerbaijan, to debate a subject that had never before been at the center of a United Nations climate conference: money.
World leaders have long agreed, in theory, on a dire need to scale up international investment in climate action — investment in both renewable energy and infrastructure that can protect people from climate-fueled drought, fire, and floods. But it is one thing to agree that more money is needed and quite another to agree on who should pay up. That impasse made this year’s conference, COP29, one of the most difficult U.N. negotiations since the 2015 Paris agreement, when the world finally set a numerical target for limiting global warming.
But unlike in Paris, the outcome in Baku saw most diplomats leave disappointed and bitter. The talks, which officials described as “agonizing,” “toxic,” and “corrosive,” pitted wealthy countries — led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — against dozens of poorer nations from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In the end, negotiators for the richer nations managed to push through a deal despite opposition from major countries like India and Kenya, as well as a chorus of small states in the fast-disappearing islands of the Pacific. But even though a huge share of countries represented in Baku were furious with the final shape of the finance agreement, none exercised their right to veto the final text.
