As I sit here, waiting to depart Baku, I am distraught, exhausted, disappointed, concerned, and ready to get the heck out of here.
I usually don’t say that when traveling to foreign countries. While Baku (and Azerbaijan) is beautiful, the people are kind, and I am going next to another neighboring country for some respite, I don’t know what to say to folks back home.
I have to begin by naming: This COP was an outright failure. What could and should have been an opportunity for transformative climate finance, re-committing to goals and pledges, and a step towards a just transition, ended up being yet another playground for oil tycoons and a chance for Global North countries to show just how much they don’t care about the rest of the world. We just condemned the world to burn.
That sounds bleak, but frankly, it is bleak.
We could have set new goals on climate finance, and we did not. I stayed up until 2 am my last night, both because i have been coughing for over a week due to the air quality, pollution, and exhaustion that has triggered my environmentally-sensitive bronchitis, and also because negotiations, or what one could attempt to call negotiations, went through the night, finally concluding around 6 am. Environmental defenders, folks standing for justice, and negotiators sat in empty hallways and plenary rooms in the Olympic Stadium that COP29 was hosted, dropping like flies as the night went on. Indigenous representation dwindled to 3 people, two of whom I know. Representation of other marginalized communities stood strong, albeit sparse in numbers, as water stations were taken away, food was cleaned up and carted off, and yet, no final draft text or decision was to be had until the wee hours of the morning. One could say that the negotiations were taking policing strategies of getting people exhausted, hungry, and overworked to the point that they would agree to anything as long as it got them out of there in some sort of timely order.
But the time for timeliness has come and gone, and this COP was a prime example of this. I am still struggling to find the words as all I know is that we have shirked our responsibility to the Global South and to our communities at home and abroad, and locked ourselves into a decade of inaction.
In the best way I can describe it, from a non-climate finance background — developing countries have consistently emphasized the need for trillions in necessary climate finance, primarily through grants-based funding. Instead, entities like the U.S. and the European Union countries, have again pledged (not guaranteed) billions. The forced agreement (which most developing countries did not agree to), projects that in ten years’ time, developing countries will receive $300 Billion per year, which, today, equates to roughly $175 billion. This is mere pennies more than the aforementioned commitment of $100 Billion per year. This means that developed countries have no hope of being able to address the ongoing climate crisis, compounded by debt and financial exhaustion, and that the world has no hope of keeping 1.5 degrees within sight. We have blown past that goal, even being asked to consider 2.5 or more degrees of global annual temperature increase. This is sure death for over half of life on earth.
I don’t know how else to say it, other than how could we have let this happen?
How could we go through 29 Conferences of the Parties and still be at this point? How can we continue, year after year, to expect that the entire globe will bankrupt themselves, breathe poisoned air, eat poisoned food, drink poisoned water, and still contribute equally to climate finance? I am outraged, and I am not the only one.
We (the United States, for primary example) expect that if we are to give out climate finance, it will be in the form of loans and voluntary contributions, which continues to line our government’s pockets and other wealthy individuals and entities that could care less about clean air and water. Not to mention justice of any kind. We have effectively written into law that we will never accept accountability or take the lead to righting wrongs or accepting our fair share of responsibility. This outcome, or lack thereof, makes a mockery of previous commitments, the Paris Agreement, and clearly tells disaster-prone communities that their fate is signed and sealed, and it won’t cost us a dime.
At this COP, my fourth, we were faced with a chance to take a stand for the future of the world, and make an active choice to be on the right side of history. And it didn’t happen. We prioritized capital gain, ongoing colonialism, cognitive dissonance, and a blatant disregard for life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. These things clearly come second to the amassing of wealth and perceptions of power. We failed.
And yet, those of us that work on the ground, in community, in service of collective liberation and reparation, can and must forge ahead. We didn’t have the option before the last two weeks, and we certainly don’t now. It is not an option for us to give up this fight, because the world and its future hang in the balance. I am livid. I am sad. I am invigorated. I will continue this, with any and every tactic that I must. And so it is.
Analyah is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos is a young Afro-Brazilian-American woman born and raised in North Minneapolis, Minnesota. After living in Atlanta, Georgia, she moved back to Minneapolis in 2015 to study Global Relations and Environmental Justice at the University of Minnesota and the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs. She has been an aquatic guide to all ages for 12 years and counting and loves to infuse environmental wellness into her frameworks.
She is currently the International Campaign lead at MN Interfaith Power & Light, and serves on the board of multiple local organizations.
