Climate talks in Baku head into 2nd week amid disagreements

United Nations climate talks resume in Baku with hopes for a deal, while G20 summit addresses climate change.

United Nations talks on getting money to curb and adapt to climate change resumed Monday (November 18, 2024) with tempered hope that negotiators and ministers can work through disagreements and hammer out a deal after slow progress last week.

That hope comes from the arrival of the climate and environment ministers from around the world this week in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the COP29 talks. They’ll give their teams instructions on ways forward.

"We are in a difficult place,” said Melanie Robinson, economics and finance program director of global climate at the World Resources Institute. “The discussion has not yet moved to the political level — when it does I think ministers will do what they can to make a deal.”

Talks in Baku are focused on getting more climate cash for developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels, adapt to climate change and pay for damages caused by extreme weather. But countries are far apart on how much money that will require. Several experts put the sum needed at around $1 trillion.

“One trillion is going to look like a bargain five, 10 years from now,” said Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists, citing a multitude of costly recent extreme weather events from flooding in Spain to hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States. “We’re going to wonder why we didn’t take that and run with it.”

Also on Monday (November 18, 2024) , the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been mulling a proposal to cut public spending for foreign fossil fuel projects. The OECD — made up of 38 member countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan and Germany — are discussing a deal that could prevent up to $40 billion worth of carbon-polluting projects.

At COP29, activists are protesting the U.S., South Korea, Japan, and Turkey who they say are the key holdouts preventing the agreement in Paris from being finalized.