Cop29 live: calls grow to ban fossil fuel lobbyists at summit as numbers soar
NEWS | 15 November 2024
From 2h ago 06.27 EST UK Greens back calls to ban fossil fuel lobbyists The Green Party in the UK is backing calls overnight for a reform of the COP process to exclude fossil fuel companies and their army of lobbyists. Party co-leader Carla Denyer MP said: “This is a timely call for reform of an international forum that has achieved a great deal but now needs to drive action in the face of the dire climate crisis the world faces.” Denyer said the COP process had brought the world together and succeeded in putting scientific evidence at the heart of policy making.” “It has set out the scale of the crisis the world faces and has agreed, in principle, that those countries which have caused the crisis should be funding the loss and damage experienced by those who are bearing its costs.” But she warned the “crucial next phase of making change happen is being derailed by the fossil fuel lobby and complicit nation states.” “The election of a climate change denier as US President whose election call was ‘drill, baby, drill’, underlines the need to reform the COP process. “We need to move urgently to a new phase of implementation, where COP becomes the forum to hold governments to account and push forward a change agenda, including supporting countries to adapt to the impacts of the crisis already being felt. “To achieve this, we must exclude the fossil fuel companies and their lobbying arms and strengthen the representation of those countries and indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change.” She added: “COP has succeeded in highlighting the need for urgent change and has laid the foundations for achieving that, but it must now reform and refocus on making change happen.” Share Updated at 06.42 EST 16m ago 07.43 EST The Land of Fire Drive up the road from the UN climate summit in Baku, past nodding pumpjacks and snaking pipelines, and you reach a fire that has been burning for centuries. The natural flames of Yanar Dag are a curious sight. The “burning mountain” rages continuously, with tongues of fire that can reach 3 metres high. The explanation for this strange phenomenon is hinted at by the infrastructure that dots the region. Yanar Dag is fuelled by the vast quantities of gas below the ground, which in some places seep out of porous sandstone. A similar attraction, the “eternal flame” of the nearby Baku fire temple, exhausted its fuel in 1969 and now relies on gas piped in from the city. The naturally-occurring blazes have prompted Azerbaijan to market itself as “the land of fire” - as has the historical importance of Zoroastrianism, a religion with deep ties to fire. But as the host of Cop29, Azerbaijan has attracted more attention for its fuels than its flames. Oil and gas make up more than 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports, and the two hydrocarbons comprise almost the entirety of its energy mix. The president, Ilham Aliyev, used the climate summit as a chance to describe the country’s oil and gas as “a gift of God”. Surprisingly, though, staff at Yanar Dag say visitor numbers have dropped this week. Tens of thousands of climate-curious people have registered for the climate summit - among them more than 1,000 lobbyists, campaigners say - but it seems few have found time to escape the clutches of the conference centre. View image in fullscreen Natural flames of Yanar Dag near Cop29 in Baku Photograph: Ajit Niranjan/The Guardian Share 43m ago 07.15 EST In response to an earlier post [11.16 GMT] on methane leaks from my colleague Damian Carrington, London-based think tank Carbon Tracker have been in touch to highlight a report it published on Thursday. In it oil and gas companies are accused of “exacerbating the climate crisis” regarding methane and it identifes “major loopholes” in pledges to reach “near-zero” methane emissions. One such loophole is that none of the 30 companies analyzed have set targets that “cover all methane emissions related to their business activities.” Many of the companies operate gas pipelines and LNG tankers, which can emit methane but are not covered in most pledges. The same goes for joint ventures that companies do not operate directly. These are often located in countries with lower methane standards and high average methane intensities. Carbon Tracker called this a “blind spot” for many oil and gas majors, because such ventures can account for a large chunk of corporate emissions. The report also finds around 25 to 30 oil and gas producers had committed to ending “routine” flaring by 2030. The practice involves releasing the small amount of gas that comes out of the ground during oil extraction — because it is too expensive to process and transport. But Carbon Tracker said this only makes up a small part of companies’ total flaring, which also happens to reduce dangerous increases in pressure. According to the report, few companies have said they will eliminate all non-emergency flaring. “Oil and gas companies are paying lip service to climate action while emissions from their products are fueling increasingly severe storms, droughts, floods and heat waves around the world,” said Olivia Bisel, lead author and associate oil and gas analyst at Carbon Tracker, in a statement. Share 1h ago 06.53 EST Dharna Noor View image in fullscreen Michael Nabieu, 22, from a rural town in Sierra Leone at Cop29 Photograph: Dharna Noor/The Guardian The Cop29 media center has its very own Domino’s pizza outpost, where I met up with 22-year-old climate activist Michael Nabieu for a chat. Nabieu, who came to the summit with UNICEF, hails from a rural town in Sierra Leone, a country ranked in the top 10 percent of countries vulnerable to climate change despite having contributed just 0.003 percent to global carbon emissions since 1950. He said Cop29 negotiators must be “inclusive in their decision making processes and ensure that all of these people, particularly vulnerable communities, are given the right to participate in key decision making processes.” Nabieu’s parents are farmers who have been ravaged by extreme flooding in Sierra Leone. He has also tragically lost siblings during a devastating war. Yet he refuses to be pessimistic and has instead chosen to take environmental action however he can. Floods in Sierra Leone left farmland eroded, “meaning it washes away the top nutrients of the soil, exposing our land to be so vulnerable and infertile,” Nabieu said. To help combat this, he began researching soil health by watching Youtube videos about composing and meeting with university experts. He started collecting waste – cow dung, molasses, water, ash — to turn into fertilizer to help rejuvenate the soil. It massively helped the land, and he began training people in his community and beyond to employ the practice. Nabieu’s activism has had other impacts, too: The Sierra Leonean government agreed to add climate climate change into school curricula throughout the country following pressure from him and other UNICEF activists. He’s loved meeting other young activists at Cop29. “I’ve met so many friends!” Share Updated at 07.33 EST 1h ago 06.33 EST Dharna Noor View image in fullscreen Flora Vano from Vanuatu, a country comprised of 80 low-lying South Pacific islands, at Cop29 in Baku. Photograph: Dharna Noor/Guardian Flora Vano has travelled to Cop29 in Baku from Vanuatu, a country comprised of 80 low-lying South Pacific islands. Her view on the negotiations? “Big talk, small actions.” For her, the climate talks are an urgent matter. Due to the climate crisis, Vanuatu could be completely swallowed by the rising seas within decades. Her future, she said, is dependent on wealthy nations like the US providing them finance to adapt — and even retreat. “We are facing our whole survival there,” she said. “We won’t exist anymore. And there will be the US, still there standing tall.” Share 2h ago 06.27 EST UK Greens back calls to ban fossil fuel lobbyists The Green Party in the UK is backing calls overnight for a reform of the COP process to exclude fossil fuel companies and their army of lobbyists. Party co-leader Carla Denyer MP said: “This is a timely call for reform of an international forum that has achieved a great deal but now needs to drive action in the face of the dire climate crisis the world faces.” Denyer said the COP process had brought the world together and succeeded in putting scientific evidence at the heart of policy making.” “It has set out the scale of the crisis the world faces and has agreed, in principle, that those countries which have caused the crisis should be funding the loss and damage experienced by those who are bearing its costs.” But she warned the “crucial next phase of making change happen is being derailed by the fossil fuel lobby and complicit nation states.” “The election of a climate change denier as US President whose election call was ‘drill, baby, drill’, underlines the need to reform the COP process. “We need to move urgently to a new phase of implementation, where COP becomes the forum to hold governments to account and push forward a change agenda, including supporting countries to adapt to the impacts of the crisis already being felt. “To achieve this, we must exclude the fossil fuel companies and their lobbying arms and strengthen the representation of those countries and indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change.” She added: “COP has succeeded in highlighting the need for urgent change and has laid the foundations for achieving that, but it must now reform and refocus on making change happen.” Share Updated at 06.42 EST 2h ago 06.16 EST Over 1000 methane leaks reported, but just 15 fixed Damian Carrington More than 1200 huge leaks of methane have been reported to the companies and countries responsible in the last 18 months, but just 15 responded and fixed the leaks, the UN environment programme (Unep) told Cop29 on Friday. However, the recent plugging of a decade-long gas leak in Algeria just weeks after the UN’s notification shows the “eye in the sky” satellite system can work. Even the few leaks that were fixed after the UN alerts amount to emissions of taking a million cars off the road. View image in fullscreen The leak in Algeria was halted after the country received the UN notification. Photograph: UNEP Methane, the scientific name for fossil gas, is a potent greenhouse gas, 82 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2 over 20 years. It is responsible for one third of global heating to date and the climate crisis cannot be ended without slashing methane emissions. The good news is that the fixes for leaky fossil fuel sites are often fast and very simple - “a guy with a wrench”, as one expert put it. Turkmenistan had the most methane plumes spotted by Unep’s Methane Alert and Response System with 388. The Guardian reported Turkmenistan’s “mind-boggling” leaks in May 2023 and was told this had prompted government attention to the problem. A multi-million-dollar, UN-led joint programme to cut emissions in Turkmenistan has recently been endorsed by the government and is awaiting final approval to start work. The UN says there is the potential to cut 4m tonnes of methane leaks a year in Turkmenistan, equivalent to more than the entire annual CO2 emissions of the UK. The US has the second most methane leaks, with 178. The US is a co-leader of the Global Methane Pledge, a group of 150 nations pledged to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Iran had the third highest notified leaks with 111. “To have any chance of getting global warming under control, methane emissions must come down, and come down fast,” said Inger Andersen, Unep executive director. “There are often simple repairs. We are quite literally talking about screwing bolts tighter in some cases.” “Governments and oil and gas companies must stop paying lip-service to this challenge when answers are staring them in the face,” she said. “Countries should understand that this is something that cannot be swept under the carpet. We will not relent.” Unep has now launched a public platform for its methane monitoring data, called “Eye on methane”. Unep’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, which works with oil and gas companies to accurately measure and cut their methane emissions, has added 20 members over the past year, growing to 140 companies that cover more than 40% of global production. Share 2h ago 06.10 EST Hello this is Matthew Taylor, taking over the liveblog from Bibi van der Zee. Please send your thoughts and suggestions my way, at matthew.taylor@theguardian.com Share 2h ago 05.44 EST What if the US pulls out of the Paris agreement? This is the question that everyone is asking. But, as my colleague Fiona Harvey points out, “we’ve been here before”. Trump pulled out of the Paris agreement seven years ago, when he was president last time around, after all. The impact, she says, will be managed, and twin negotiating tracks will be set up to keep the US at least part of the process. Yesterday our colleague Oliver Milman reported on the damage Trump could do to his own country if he tries to repeal major climate policies. Trump’s promise to repeal major climate policies passed during Joe Biden’s presidency threatens to push $80bn of investment to other countries and cost the US up to $50bn in lost exports, the analysis found, surrendering ground to China and other emerging powers in the race to build electric cars, batteries, solar and wind energy for the world. “The US will still install a bunch of solar panels and wind turbines, but getting rid of those policies would harm the US’s bid for leadership in this new world,” said Bentley Allan, an environmental and political policy expert at Johns Hopkins University, who co-authored the new study. “The energy transition is inevitable and the future prosperity of countries hinges on being part of the clean energy supply chain,” he said. “If we exit the competition, it will be very difficult to re-enter. Share Updated at 05.49 EST 3h ago 05.17 EST There is more discussion at Cop today, according to my colleague Dharna Noor, about the worrying reports that Argentina’s leader Javier Millei is mulling over pulling out of the Paris agreement. “We’re reevaluating our strategy on all matters related to climate change,” the country’s foreign minister, Gerardo Werthein, told The New York Times, adding that the country had fundamental doubts about what is driving climate change. The Washington Post also reported the news, citing an unnamed government official.The Argentinian embassy in Baku did not respond to a request for comment. View image in fullscreen Argentina’s President Javier Milei arriving to speak before President-elect Donald Trump during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate yesterday in Palm Beach. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP In the past Argentinian President Javier Milei has described climate change and the international effort to contain it as a “socialist lie.” On Thursday, he met with Trump at the incoming president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Milei was the first head of state Trump received in person since winning the Nov. 5 election. During his campaign, Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris deal. The U.S. left briefly during Trump’s first term. But no other countries followed. Share Updated at 05.40 EST
Author: Bibi Van Der Zee. Matthew Taylor.
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