The UN annual climate summit is now under way in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, with thousands of representatives from the world converging in the South Caucasus nation for two weeks of negotiations over how to tackle the climate crisis.
But the global summit has been overshadowed by the re-election of Donald Trump as United States president, who has expressed his intention to walk out of the landmark Paris Agreement for the second time. He is also likely to reduce the US’s carbon-cutting commitments critical in the transition to net zero.
Countries have also failed to agree on how to fund the transition towards green energy and climate change mitigation programmes around the world.
Here is what you need to know:
COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku, between November 11-22.
The decision to host the summit in a country whose economy is based on fossil fuels has been criticised by climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, who labelled the event a “greenwash conference” during a recent lecture.
COP is an abbreviation for the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, which refers to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992.
The UNFCCC, which entered into force in 1994, has become a basis for landmark agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Climate Agreement (2015), which aims to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
The first COP summit was held in the German capital Berlin in 1995.
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