Who’s Who At COP29: The Taliban, Russia, Climate Reparations, And Carbon Chaos

As COP29 — the United Nations’ annual climate change summit — gets underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, Canadians may notice that their government isn’t broadcasting their participation to quite the same extent as in prior years. [emphasis, links added]

At the Paris Climate Summit in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was there on day one, promising to the assembled delegates that Canada “will take on a new leadership role internationally.”

Now, carbon pricing is one of the most singularly unpopular issues for the Liberal government, and this is the third year in a row that Trudeau won’t be personally attending the summit, which is taking place from Nov. 11 to 22.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault showed up promising to hand out more than $1 billion in climate-related foreign aid, and Canada has built an entire pavilion at the conference holding workshops ranging from Addressing Climate Disasters with Equity to Inspiring Change Through Global Children’s Perspectives.

But Baku may lack the glamour of prior UN climate change conferences.

As detailed below, Canada will be rubbing elbows with the Taliban, Putin loyalists — and doing it all in one of the most oily cities on Earth.

The Taliban Is There

The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have not been allowed a seat at the United Nations General Assembly, and only a handful of countries have established any kind of official diplomatic relations with the government, which officially calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Still, they can still come to the UN’s climate change conferences.

Over the weekend, Reuters confirmed that representatives from the Taliban’s National Environmental Protection Agency will be going to Baku, making this the most prestigious international summit attended by the rogue theocratic state.

So Is Russia (They’re One Of The Biggest Delegations)

Azerbaijan used to be part of the Soviet Union and still enjoys warm relations with its former ruler.

As recently as August, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a state visit to Baku to ink an “action plan for enhanced bilateral cooperation.”

Internal emails obtained by Reuters also show that Russia was instrumental in having this year’s conference hosted in Azerbaijan versus Bulgaria, a member of the European Union.

All of this might be why Russia is leaning into this climate change conference more than most, with a delegation of 900.

Although they’re representing a country whose economy is heavily dependent on oil and has adopted virtually no material climate policies, the Russian news agency TASS did say that the Russian delegation will be “carbon-neutral” for the first time.

For the Canadians at the conference, this means they’re going to be sharing cafeteria lines and washrooms with representatives of a country whose soldiers Ottawa is helping to kill.

At last count, Canada has contributed $4.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine in countering its invasion by Russia.

The Whole Thing Is Being Held In A Historic Center Of Oil Production

Some of the most notable UN climate change conferences have been held in cities famous for their low environmental footprints, such as Copenhagen, Paris or Kyoto.

For the last two conferences, this trend has been conspicuously ended in favor of convening in some of the world’s most eminent petrostates.

Last year was in Dubai, a city funded, built, and sustained almost entirely by fossil fuels. And this year is in a place whose name is virtually synonymous with oil.

Baku was the world’s first major oil production center outside of the United States. And pumping oil is still primarily what Baku does.

Oil production represents about half of Azerbaijan’s GDP, as compared to Canada, where it’s only about three percent.

And the lights at COP29 are being kept on by an energy grid that is fueled almost entirely by fossil fuels.

As per the most recent analysis by the International Energy Agency, just six percent of Azerbaijani electricity comes from renewable sources (in Canada it’s more than 70 percent).

[Roughly 68% of Canada’s electricity comes from renewable sources, with hydropower being the largest contributor at about 60%. Other renewables, like wind and solar, account for around 8%. —CCD editor]

COP29’s Headline Goal Is To Convince Rich Countries To Give Trillions To Poor Countries

Press coverage of UN climate change conferences often ends up rallying around a central number. At the Paris Climate Talks, for instance, the goal was summed up as limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels.

This time around, the main number is a monetary figure: US$1 trillion. That’s one of the suggested targets for the new collective quantified goal (NCQG); essentially a giant pool of money provided by rich countries to finance the climate-mitigation efforts of poor countries.

The World Economic Forum, for one, has rallied around the $1 trillion goal, suggesting that new taxes and pollution levies could fund it.

The Number Of Delegates Is Way Up Over Previous Years

Only a few years ago, Canada was routinely sending one of the largest delegations to UN climate change conferences.

In 2015, Canada sent 283 delegates to Paris; a contingent that was double the size of the American team, and triple the size of the United Kingdom’s.

This time around, Canada’s delegation doesn’t even make the top 20 for size. But it’s not so much that Canada is sending fewer people. Rather, it’s that the rest of the world is sending massively inflated delegations as compared to previous years.

Canada is sending about 370 people to Baku. Compare that to an an analysis by Carbon Brief which found that Brazil registered 1,914 delegates, Turkey registered 1,862 and even the African nations of Chad and Nigeria are beating Canada on attendance (387 and 637, respectively).

All told an estimated 65,000 people are coming to Baku. That’s nearly double the 36,000 who showed up to the Paris conference in 2015.

Activist groups, for one, are saying that part of the delegate inflation is due to the increasing presence of oil industry lobbyists at the conference; 2,456 as compared to 636 last year, according to Kick Big Polluters Out.

Top photo by Matthew TenBruggencate on Unsplash

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