Protesters gather at COP29 as progress on deal slows

Activists hold signs during a demonstration against fossil fuels

By Melina Walling, Sibi Arasu and Seth Borenstein

Nov. 16, 2024 Updated 1:59 PM PT

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Hundreds of activists formed a human chain outside one of the main plenary halls at the United Nations climate summit, which aims to curb warming from coal, oil and natural gas.

The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan, was echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.

Activists waved flags, snapped their fingers, and hummed and mumbled chants in a silent protest, with many covering their mouths with tape bearing the word “silenced.”

Demonstrators held up signs calling for more money to be pledged for climate finance, which involves cash for transitioning to clean energy and adapting to climate change. It comes as negotiators at the venue try to hammer out a deal for exactly that — but progress has been slow and observers say the direction of any agreement is still unclear.

Environmental advocates have also decried fossil fuel industry influence at the climate talks, called COP29, which are being hosted by a petrostate.

Activists vow to ‘increase the pressure’

Lidy Nacpil said protesters like her are “not surprised” about how negotiations are going. But past wins — such as a loss and damage fund that gives developing nations cash after extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change — keep organizers going, said Nacpil, a coordinator with the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development.

“The role we play is to increase the pressure,” she said of the action. “We know we’re not going to get the results that the world needs in this round of negotiations, but at least to bring us many steps closer is our hope.”

Activists in Baku were joined by protests big and small around the world.

In London, hundreds of protesters marched from the British Museum to the offices of Socar, the Azerbaijani-owned oil company, before heading to the residence and office of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Demonstrators with hands painted red chanted, “COP29, stop the lies, greenwashing genocide” and “Keep it in the ground.”

On a deal for climate cash, there’s not much progress

Negotiators at COP29 are working on a deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.

Samir Bejanov, deputy lead negotiator of this year’s climate talks, said in a news conference that the climate finance talks were moving too slowly.

“I want to repeat our strong encouragement to all parties to make as much progress as possible,” he said. “We need everyone to approach the task with urgency and determination.”

Observers were also disappointed at the pace of progress.

“This has been the worst first week of a COP in my 15 years of attending this summit,” said Mohamed Adow, of climate think tank Power Shift Africa. “There’s no clarity on the climate finance goal, the quality of the finance or how it’s going to be made accessible to vulnerable countries.

“I sense a lot of frustration, especially among the developing country blocs here,” he said.

Panama’s environment minister, Juan Carlos Navarro, agreed, telling the Associated Press that he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.

“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate-change-fueled disasters.

“We must face these challenges with a true sense of urgency and sincerity,” he said. “We are dragging our feet as a planet.”

A letter signed by former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former U.N. climate secretary Christiana Figueres and former Irish President Mary Robinson called for “a fundamental overhaul of the COP.” “We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” it said.

Instead of spending so much effort negotiating new deals in annual conferences that can attract 70,000 people, the process should be smaller and more frequent and aimed at putting what was already agreed on into action, said one of the signees, Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Fossil fuel influence decried

An analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition said that the official attendance list of the talks featured at least 1,770 people connected to fossil fuel interests.

Catherine Abreu, director of the International Climate Politics Hub, suggested that there should be a “firewall” between fossil fuel lobbyists, U.N. climate bodies and negotiators from countries.

“We know over 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists are here at COP29. That is not acceptable,” she said on Friday.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who presented new data Friday on carbon pollution sites, said that “it’s unfortunate that the fossil fuel industry and the petrostates have seized control of the COP process to an unhealthy degree.”

New data reveals the most polluting cities

Also at the talks Friday, new data from an organization co-founded by Gore found that cities in Asia and the United States emit the most heat-trapping gas, with Shanghai the most polluting.

Using observations and artificial intelligence, Climate Trace quantifies heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, as well as other traditional air pollutants worldwide, including for the first time in more than 9,000 urban areas.

Seven states or provinces spew more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, all of them in China, except Texas, which ranks sixth.

Earth’s total carbon dioxide and methane pollution grew 0.7% to 61.2 billion metric tons with the short-lived but extra potent methane rising 0.2%. The figures are higher than other datasets “because we have such comprehensive coverage and we have observed more emissions in more sectors than are typically available,” said Gavin McCormick, Climate Trace’s co-founder.

Shanghai’s 256 million metric tons of greenhouse gases led all cities and exceeded totals from the nations of Colombia or Norway. Tokyo’s 250 million metric tons would rank in the top 40 of nations if it were a country, while New York City’s 160 million metric tons and Houston’s 150 million metric tons would be in the top 50. Seoul ranks fifth among cities at 142 million metric tons.

“One of the sites in the Permian Basin in Texas is by far the No. 1 worst polluting site in the entire world,” Gore said. “And maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by that, but I think of how dirty some of these sites are in Russia and China and so forth. But Permian Basin is putting them all in the shade.”

China, India, Iran, Indonesia and Russia had the biggest increases in emissions from 2022 to 2023, while Venezuela, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States had the biggest decreases in pollution.

Walling, Arasu and Borenstein write for the Associated Press. AP writer Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed to this report.