FOR those determined to save the planet and humanity as we slide towards climate catastrophe, the latest UN Climate Change Conference, Cop29, which kicked off this week in Baku, will not be inspiring much confidence.
The capital of Azerbaijan as the host city was a controversial choice right from the start due to the country’s human rights record and status as a major fossil fuel producer (note well without any irony previous hosts, Britain, Qatar and the UAE…)
In the run-up to the conference starting, a major controversy arose after the Azerbaijani Cop29 chief executive was secretly filmed using the event to promote oil and gas deals within the country.
Western “fake news” and “blame” should rightly be exposed in terms of the responsibility for climate change and the role of developing nations, but the opening remarks of Azerbaijan’s President praising fossil fuels as “a gift from god” have hardly set a promising tenor for proceedings.
This comedy of errors might be the least bit funny if the stakes for every person on the planet were not so high.
As the crisis becomes more acute, many world leaders increasingly aren’t even capable of paying lip service to the global united action we need to implement the sweeping economic and social changes needed to save the planet.
The election of Donald Trump last week had global implications, and the climate is no exception.
Trump has become climate denier in chief, and his pledges to expand oil and gas production in the US and withdraw from the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse emissions place the whole (already insufficient and fragile) global climate effort under threat.
The new climate target announced by Keir Starmer at Cop29 to some fanfare is an improvement but still falls far, far short of what is needed, much like his much-vaunted pledges on investment in green energy back here in Britain.
At the same time, Starmer is allowing new and expanded fossil fuel extraction to go ahead. It has been left to climate activists to fight the new Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in court.
The new Labour government have taken no action to restrain, regulate and tax the big monopolies responsible for and profiting from climate change.
It is not these monopolies that suffer the effects of climate change. Always and everywhere, it is working people — from the victims of flash flooding in Valencia to those battling hurricanes in Cuba in recent weeks.
The reality that working people must be won to understand is that expecting capitalist politicians to save us from the corrosive actions of big business is akin to hoping that the vampire’s familiar will save you from being bled dry.
But there are reasons to be hopeful, and as ever, our hope is to be found in the struggles and in the determination of working people.
Working people in Valencia, abandoned and betrayed by politicians and the state, took to the streets to hold the system to account and to help one another.
Socialist Cuba — which, despite all the crushing impacts of the cruel US blockade, is one of the most environmentally friendly societies in the world — endured hurricanes amplified by climate change without the loss of life seen in the US or other Caribbean neighbours.
China, through the use of state planning and investment, is leading the world in the implementation of green energy, public transport and reforestation.
The planet and humanity can be saved, but on the global scale, too, it is down to working people to save ourselves.
The left and trade union movement here in Britain must truly take up the mantle of saving the planet and be clear that stopping climate change means system change.
