Crypto News: COP29: There's only one story in Baku

Good evening from Baku. There's one thing on the top of everyone's mind here at the UN climate talks: How do countries continue the fight against catastrophic global warming after the return of US President Donald Trump? He's already signaled an end to climate cooperation from the world's second biggest emitter. The outgoing US climate envoy John Podesta attempted to head off all Trump questions at a press conference this evening. You can read that story — and all of our COP29 coverage — for free on Bloomberg.com.

By Will Kennedy

A fight about what goes on the agenda is a longstanding tradition that's marked the start of many COPs.

Here in Baku, negotiators were reportedly working until 4am this morning trying to hammer out this year's running order. Then the opening plenary was delayed by several hours for more talks. As this newsletter went to press, we were still waiting.

The current administrative arguments aren't make-0r-break issues for this year's meeting, but they do illustrate the tensions likely to inform two weeks of line-by-line haggling at Baku's Olympic stadium.

It's been well flagged that this year will be dominated by the New Quantitative Collective Goal on finance — or in non-COP language, how much climate cash will flow from the rich to the developing world after the current $100 billion a year deal expires in 2025.

While developed country delegations, including from Europe and the US, accept finance will top the bill, they worry other issues risk falling by the wayside, especially fleshing out last year's pledge to transition away from fossil fuels. Today's spat was about keeping as much of that on the agenda as possible.

The delay prevented the incoming COP President Mukhtar Babayev from gaveling through a genuine piece of progress: long-awaited rules on governing a new global carbon market.

That will no doubt come sooner or later, along with a workable agenda, but there's a lot of hard graft ahead on a finance deal. Developing nations are pushing for no less than a grand total of $1 trillion a year.

That's not going to happen, but even the more modest near-term goal of $300 billion mooted by one well-informed insider today as a possible landing zone may be too much for many.

A compromise will likely be found by including as much in the eventual total as possible – loans from multilateral development banks, for example, and even some private sector cash – but it's going to be a slog.

The top US negotiator John Podesta said at an opening press conference that Biden was still in the White House and his team was fully engaged in making Baku a success.

A finance deal "needs to be realistic but we think we can get that done here," he said.

But with Trump II only 70 days away, meaningful American participation is likely to be fleeting.

$441 billion

This is how much the Arab group of countries want rich nations to put forward from their own pockets toward an annual climate finance goal. It'll likely be too much for negotiators to stomach.

"Please do not forget that from war, from conflicts, come a huge amount of emissions."

Mukhtar Babayev

COP29 President

On the latest episode of the Zero podcast, Babayev tells Akshat Rathi that climate negotiations can open the door to ending conflicts. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

Tune in to Bloomberg TV from 8:30am local time for live interviews from COP29. The European Union's climate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, will be on at 9:15am to discuss the bloc's COP29 strategy amid a time of political crises for many of its biggest member states. World Bank President Ajay Banga will join at 1:30pm. Multilateral development banks are being asked this year to contribute more toward climate finance initiatives.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods will join Akshat Rathi for a live recording of the Zero podcast from at the International Chamber of Commerce pavilion in the Blue Zone at 10:30am local time. Woods made his debut at UN climate negotiations in Dubai last year, which was also the first for an Exxon chief. With emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas already on course to top last year's record, Exxon may face increasing pressure to engage in climate action.

Heads of state will be addressing the summit from 2pm local time. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be the largest economy leader to deliver a speech, but look out for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose taken his country on an ambitious journey to fossil fuels. Last year Colombia announced it would be joining a coalition of nations backing the "fossil fuel nonproliferation" treaty.

Even as the United Nations climate conference COP29 kicks off in Baku, preparations are underway for the 2025 edition of the summit, in Belém, Brazil. COP30 will be the first COP held in the Amazon rainforest and will see the debut of a new global order on climate, with the US likely playing a diminished role following Donald Trump's reelection, and China possibly a larger one. That raises the stakes, and the pressure on the host — which was already high.

"The challenge of being the leader of COP30 next year, in the heart of the Amazon forest, is huge," said Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister and top climate diplomat, at an event on the sidelines of the World Bank and IMF meetings in Washington, DC, in late October. The event is being talked about as "the green COP," Silva added.

Marina Silva in 2003 Photographer: Paulo Fridman/Corbis News

For two years in a row, COP has been hosted by oil-rich autocracies with climate plans that are "critically insufficient," according to the research partnership Climate Action Tracker. Brazil is different. It may be among the world's top 10 oil exporters, but it's also a world leader in new wind and solar installations and has strong climate commitments. There, observers hope that more aggressive goal-setting will be possible.

"If we are ambitious about announcing goals, we have to be ambitious about implementing them," Silva said in an interview with Bloomberg Green. To that end, "Brazil's COP has to be the COP for reducing CO2 emissions."

Read the full story for free on Bloomberg.com.

While walking on the shoreline of the Caspian Sea today in Baku, Bloomberg Green's Executive Editor Aaron Rutkoff came across a convincing model of a beached whale. It was enough to draw crowds and fool a few unsuspecting passersby. Social media reports suggest the "hyper-realistic installation" is just one of the many shocking exhibits that are commonly found around COP summits to draw awareness toward environmental destruction.

Photographer: Aaron Rutkoff/Bloomberg

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