This year the conference was hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan – though a country which pumps less than 1% of the worlds oil and gas, they economically rely on fuel production and their president Ilham Aliyev hailed oil and gas a ‘gift from God’. Azerbaijan is the third authoritarian state in a row to host COP, also known for its deterioration in protecting human rights and censorship of the press. All of this is seemingly at odds with what the UN and COP stands for, and this rocky beginning only descends further down-hill.
The failure of the Global North to take responsibility for their role in climate finance and action reflects their broader negligence regarding colonial and imperial histories.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) demonstrated a walk out when protesting the suggested goal of $250bn per year which was viewed as too little too late, a sentiment shared by over 100 nations which make up the Global South. The failure of the Global North to take responsibility for their role in climate finance and action reflects their broader negligence regarding colonial and imperial histories.
As if the atrocities committed by the Global North during colonial rule were not enough, they continue to greedily line their pockets and count their profits as the world burns. The Global South continue to be exploited through neo-colonialism and the monopolisation of climate change.
As the rich get richer and continue to produce excessive emissions, the Global South are the first to suffer the consequences of climate change at the hands of other’s actions.
In 2020, a report from The Lancet Planetary Health found the Global North (including the USA, Canada, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) responsible for 92% of excess global carbon emissions. As the rich get richer and continue to produce excessive emissions, the Global South are the first to suffer the consequences of climate change at the hands of other’s actions.
The Global North export their climate footprints by building factories abroad and deforesting anyone’s land but their own. Then they initiate ‘carbon offset projects’, and through the guise of reforestation of land (which they themselves destroyed) they continue to exploit the Global South by forcibly displacing indigenous communities.
COP29 is a pathetic, hypocritical façade
COP29 is a pathetic, hypocritical façade where the Global North have the audacity to demand the importance of climate action while they continue to emit the most carbon, steal and destroy indigenous land and cannot even support those they have historically failed.
It is no wonder there were walk outs, protests, and discontent at COP29 when this conference is an illusion. The rich commit to empty promises and steal precious time ‘negotiating’ goals for ten years in the future when it is already too late for the Global South.
It is impossible to quantify the financial and emotional reparations that should be owed to the Global South for hundreds of years of oppression, exploitation, and injustice committed during colonialism and its continuation today.
The first step needs to see the Global North wake up and pay up the estimated $170 trillion it would take to repair the damages their emissions have caused. An ounce of genuine empathy and remorse would go a long way as well.