Emmanuel Macron, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, Lula, Narendra Modi… Several important heads of state will not go to COP29 on climate change which begins Monday and is due to end on November 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Thursday evening, it was Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, who canceled his visit. Every year, leaders from around the world take the podium at the start of the Climate Conference, so fewer heads of state will be present this time.
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In all, more than a hundred heads of state have announced that they will be present at COP29 in Baku, but this year, several important leaders will not make the trip and their justifications are varied.
For Xi Jinping for example, it’s usual. He has not been to a COP in eight years and he rarely leaves China since the Covid-19 pandemic.
An end-of-COP agreement anyway?
In the United States, the presidential election is monopolizing Joe Biden’s attention. Olaf Scholz also faces a political crisis in Germany. Lula, the president of Brazil, has health problems and has canceled several international meetings. As for Emmanuel Macron, he avoids Azerbaijan because of his support for Armenia in the border conflict between the two countries.
COP29 will therefore do without their speeches and if these speeches and the meetings between heads of state can certainly give a welcome political impetus to bring to fruition negotiations which are always complicated, they will not prevent reaching an end-of-term agreement. COP, because the ministers and diplomats from each country are present.
Environmental issuesWho will fill the void that the United States will leave in the next climate negotiations?