Donald Trump’s the election of the US president brings a whole new difficulty factor to the Baku climate meeting. At the same time, the negotiators are waiting for a tough fight over the money needed for climate action in poor countries.
Today, on Monday, the countries of the world started the 29th annual two-week UN climate meeting in Azerbaijan.
Trump’s election as president practically means that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement common to all countries. Experts have estimated that bilateral climate cooperation between the United States and China will also cease.
Uncertainty and confusion are expected, as the dynamics of the world’s two biggest climate changers have supported the entire climate agreement.
– The biggest question is what will happen next between the USA and China. If we look at global emissions, China is about a third of all emissions, the USA is about half of China’s emissions, and the EU is half of the USA’s climate emissions, Outi Honkatuk describes the weight of the great powers in climate policy.
According to Honkatukia, China needs a new counterpart who will make it move forward in climate action when the other emissions superpower is gone. Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement in his first term. At that time, Canada and the EU negotiated with China in particular.
Now the situation in the world is different. Geopolitics creates tensions and in many countries at the forefront of climate politics, power has changed and shifted to the right.
– In the past, there has been more support for climate policy. Now it is being challenged in many EU countries as well, says Honkatukia.
Outi Honkatukia is currently in Baku. He is one of the EU’s chief negotiators. Finland negotiates as part of the EU.
Why doesn’t China pay?
The biggest twist at the Baku meeting will concern climate finance. Both the amount of money and the group of financiers should be increased.
The current funding goal of the climate agreement is already old, from 2009. According to it, the countries had to release a total of one hundred billion dollars in climate money every year by 2020. A new goal for the money pot must be drawn up starting in 2025.
According to Honkatukia, there will be a twist in Baku especially about which countries belong to the payers’ camp. So far, only traditional industrialized countries are obliged to participate in climate finance. There is no obligation in poor countries.
The division into industrialized countries and poor countries is called a firewall in the climate agreement.
The firewall was only partially broken when the Paris climate agreement was signed: then it was decided that both the rich and the poor would reduce their own emissions. In the past, only the industrialized countries that historically caused more emissions took climate measures.
In financing, however, the distribution has remained the same.
– The financing obligation only applies to those countries that happened to be OECD member countries in the early 1990s. The world has changed since then, says Honkatukia.
The division into paying Western countries and poor developing countries was made based on OECD membership in Rio in 1992, when the world’s first climate agreement was concluded. OECD is an organization of industrialized countries.
In particular, China’s status as a poor country in the climate negotiations has caused outrage. The country’s gross domestic product is higher than that of some EU countries. China is also a member of the OECD today.
The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also negotiating as poor developing countries without the obligation to participate in climate finance.
According to Honkatukia, the EU wants both China and the rich oil countries to pay.
– Countries whose GDP exceeds the income level of some EU member states should of course be included in the group of financiers.
China’s role has been a threshold issue especially for the United States. When the country itself, thanks to Trump, no longer carries its own card for climate financing, it will be even more difficult to negotiate about China’s transition to the financiers’ camp, says Honkatukia.
The EU countries’ desire to increase their own role as payers is also low in the Netherlands. Until now, the EU has been a bigger climate funder than the United States. European countries also patched up cash deficits in Trump’s first term.
– The EU countries’ willingness to pay to patch the gap is no longer at the same level. It is nationally more difficult for countries to justify giving gift money after inflation and supporting Ukraine.
Honkatukia says that the EU also wants to increase the share of private money and demands that support for fossil fuels be stopped.
The need for climate finance has only grown as climate change and the destruction it causes progresses.
The goal of one hundred billion dollars was reached for the first time in 2022. Now it is already known that the need for money is calculated in trillions of dollars.
The elephant in the living room of the climate agreement
The final impact of the US withdrawal on the climate agreement and global climate action is still unclear.
Most recently, during the Trump era, US negotiators became passive and kept a low profile at climate meetings.
– It is interesting to see that the USA is already a lame duck here in Baku, Honkatukia says.
Most recently, Trump did not pull other countries out of the climate agreement in his wake, and Honkatuk does not expect that now either. He takes Russia as an example.
Russia has been a free passenger in climate diplomacy for years. It is part of the Paris Agreement, but it has not been expected and has not taken climate action.
– After all, we have other elephants like this in the living room, countries whose emissions are quite significant, but which have been allowed to be. It will be interesting to see if the USA will be similar.
Honkatukia believes that the US negotiators will continue to influence the climate agreement behind the scenes. They already did that in Rio in the 1990s, even though the United States had not yet ratified the climate agreement at that time.
The United States is not a party to the UN Biodiversity Convention either, but they have representation and a lot of influence there as well.
Finland is represented in Baku by the President of the Republic Alexander Stubbwho will participate in the climate meeting today and tomorrow, Tuesday. Minister of Climate and Environment Kai Mykkänen (col.) will travel there next week.
Celeste Saulo, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, spoke at the Baku Climate Summit:
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