IN about two weeks, 198 nations will gather in Baku, Azerbaijan for the 29th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, more popularly known as COP29.
Will this COP be a cop out like those that went before? Hard not to be. Here is why.
COPs have not had a good past. When 117 nations concluded the COP1 summit in Berlin, Germany on April 7, 1995, they began a tradition of inadequate commitments and a custom of deferring decisions.
Climate action has since become climate inaction. And it shows. Not one but two UN reports — by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) — and in quick succession, too, come with a dire warning: be ready for an unliveable Earth of 3ºC by the end of the century.
Take the first. There in the Annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the WMO says carbondioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than any time in human history, rising by 11.4 per cent in 20 years.
Other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide are surging, too, meaning the world is off track in meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC. The second, the UN Emission Gap Report 2024 (EGR) published by the UNEP, says world leaders face stark choices.
Either they agree to limit global warming to 1.5ºC or struggle to adapt to 2ºC or face catastrophic consequences at 2.6ºC and beyond. It is crunch time, says UNEP's executive director Inger Andersen in the UN news portal.
She is right. We needn't travel elsewhere to experience extreme weather brought about by climate change. Even with 1.5ºC global warming, Malaysia is being pummelled by storms of cyclonic proportions followed by devastating floods that the country hasn't witnessed before.
What needs to be done to keep global warming at 1.5ºC? Andersen's response is this: "We need global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before, starting right now before the next round of climate pledges."
The pledges are due in February next year. "Right now" began last Thursday. The EGR warns that the 1.5ºC global warming rate will be gone in a few years unless the 198 nations collectively commit to cut 42 per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035.
Tall order? Yes, based on current carbon-cutting promises. Even if the current commitments are met, the report highlights, it will be a stormy and fiery Earth of 2.6ºC to 2.8ºC. What a barely liveable planet the Earth would be.
For Azerbaijan, the host of COP29, it is an unfair burden to bear. All the inadequate commitments and deferred deci sions from COP1 to COP28 are now for the Central Asian nation to resolve.
In a letter sent out to the conference parties, the host wanted all hands on deck on two items: the enhancement of ambition and the enabling of action. As the WMO and UNEP reports reveal, only enhanced ambition backed by action can stop the Earth from being any warmer than 1.5ºC.
As Baku knows, all hands must be on deck. Will they be? That is the unenviable responsibility of Baku to ensure they are.