Nations gather for U.N. climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan

As nations gather at this year’s talks, which are scheduled to run until Nov. 22, delegates will also have to contend with their countries’ failure so far to deliver on the central pledge of last year’s negotiations. The United States, for one, is producing more oil than any country, ever — a trajectory expected to accelerate when Trump returns to the White House.

President Joe Biden does not plan to travel to Baku, and many other world leaders are planning to forgo this year’s summit. The United States has sent a delegation led by John D. Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy. And while the president-elect is not expected to attend, his presence looms large over the meeting.

Delegations are calling this the “Finance COP,” as leaders are aiming to create a new target for funding climate action in developing countries. But such negotiations are expected to be difficult and contentious. Simon Stiell, the United Nations’ executive secretary for climate change, said that without better financing, it will be “near impossible” to achieve the world’s climate goals.

In an address to kick off the meeting Monday, the COP29 president, Mukhtar Babayev, said the world faces an “unmissable” moment to address an existential problem and needs “more than prayers and paperwork.”

Here are other key developments

• Babayev, who spent much of his career at Azerbaijan’s state-run oil and gas company, reminded countries of last year’s pledge on fossil fuels and said nation-level emissions-reduction plans — due in the coming months — are a “last chance to put the world on track.”
• China, one of the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases, has so far defied pressure to set ambitious climate targets and to do more to help poor nations cope with the ravages of a warming world. Experts say that at this year’s talks, any commitments from China, as well as the United States, could persuade other countries to set strong climate targets, too.
• Ahead of the conference, an army of social media bots was promoting the controversial choice of petrostate Azerbaijan as the site of COP29. The country is a major oil and gas producer and has sought to use the summit to bolster its global image amid international criticism of its alleged human rights violations and its planned expansion of natural gas production.