G-20 summit failed to deliver, COP29 may follow suit

The picture is funny and even hilarious to most viewers. Thanks to Brazil's indigenous environmental activists who could think of such a novel protest against climate inaction on the part of world leaders. The protesters took out giant cut-outs of faces of five heads of government and the president of European Commission to sink in water giving the impression that they can barely breathe drowned as they are. The leaders are Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Ursula von der Leyen, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin and Shigeru Ishiba. Needless to say this is symbolic of the sea-level rise induced by the global warming. As if the message here is: just try to feel how people in the small and vulnerable countries in the world will suffer due to the galloping seas overtaking their lands.
What an intelligent way of putting the inherent message across! The indigenous peoples all across the planet are firmly rooted to the soil and respect their inalienable bond with Nature. They are the ones who are habituated not to pollute the environment consciously or unconsciously. In several forest areas around the world, they have stood guard against tree felling and poaching. So they reserve the right to rebuke the leaders of the so-called civilised societies. The occasion the Brazil's sons and daughters of soil have chosen to make their repugnance against the civilised world's mayhem of the natural world known could not be more appropriate.
Rio de Janeiro was hosting the G-20 summit on Monday and Tuesday last where the world's largest, most populous nations along with other regionally influential countries including associations such as the European Union and African Union were represented by their leaders. While this summit was going on, another important get-together known as the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was also being held in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. The two concurrently held high-profile assemblies at venues at a distance of about 12,000 kilometre may look unconnected but they are not.
When the deliberations at the COP29 came to a standstill over the arguments over who to finance the climate fund for the most vulnerable countries to the global heating, the UN appealed to the G-20 leaders to send words of their governments' support for the financing of vulnerable nations' adaptation and the overall mitigation programmes endorsed at the Paris Summit.
Rest assured, this caricature of leadership failure will not put the political stalwarts to shame let alone to action. The bargain over climate finance has witnessed many twists and turns at Baku like it did at other venues in the past. Developed countries insist on expanding the contributor base including the role of private sector before the amount is put on the table. Climate activists find this as an attempt to distract negotiators of the developing and least developed countries and delay the negotiations. The Paris Agreement is absolutely clear here. It is the responsibility of the developed countries to provide developing ones with 'the finance needed to address the climate crisis' and they must be true to their obligation.
The figure between $200-300 billion the European Union has so far unofficially proposed is simply 'pathetic', observes a representative from the Climate Action Network International. To quote another from the Power Shift Africa, "This is a climate 'COP' and we're dealing with a climate crime. But those responsible are trying to wriggle their way out". This sums up the negotiations held so far at the COP29 in Baku. The G-20 summit ended without any agreement and it will not be surprising if COP29 follow suit.
The developed countries are keen to include China and Saudi Arabia in their fold of contributors and depending on their commitments to the climate fund they like to decide their own. This is a ploy because here the emphasis is on cold figures on papers from which the lives of peoples at risk are missing.
That the G-20 summit failed to send a positive signal to Baku has something extra to do with the political changeover in the United States of America. Donald Trump has every likelihood of withdrawing his country from the climate agreements. The change of guard in America may have far-reaching implications on the future of the planet and mankind. In fact, the G-20 summit and the COP29 have been held under the looming shadow of climate disaster and a third world war.
If Trump is an incorrigible disbeliever in climate change, Joe Biden has been responsible for stoking the war in Ukraine which now has all the making of escalating into a war beyond the Russia-Ukraine territories. As a parting kick Biden has approved US-supplied long-range weapon system, known as ATACMS, strikes deep inside Russia. Sensing it, Putin has also signed a decree updating and expanding Kremlin's nuclear doctrine to allow for the use of atomic arsenals in case of an attack on Russia by a non-nuclear party backed by a nuclear power. Ukraine has carried out such an attack.
Even Trump has criticised this attack blaming Biden for initiating the process of a third world war. The US president-elect has promised to bring an end to the Russo-Ukraine war and he is all set to take over within two months. Thus both US president and president-elect have contradictory stands on the two important issues mankind is confronting right now. Both are dangerous from one or the other point of view. Indeed the human race finds itself at a crossroads.
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