COP-29 and "drill, baby, drill" - bad news for fight against climate change

The yearly global climate change meeting, COP, number 29, is arranged in Baku, Azerbaijan. The most important task of the global climate negotiations is to become free from the use of fossil fuels. In this context it is somewhat surprising that for the second year in a row the meeting is held in a country with the most important export product being oil. In the case of Azerbaijan, oil contributes to 90 % of the nation’s exports. Russia played a decisive role in deciding the place of the meeting. First, Russia vetoed the bids of all the other candidates for COP-29 except Armenia and Azerbaijan. With these two countries left, and them having border skirmishes, Russia stopped the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the condition that Armenia did not oppose Azerbaijan’s bid for the climate meeting. (Needless to say that Azerbaijan was overwhelming in the conflict.) In addition to Azerbaijan being very dependent on oil exports, Russia as a spokesman is very susceptible, as it also has oil and natural gas as the most important export products.

At present, Russian oil is shipped in boats, which are not insured by any western insurance company, and often do not fulfil the standards required for maximally safe oil transport. The present state of affairs thus increases the possibility of oil tanker shipwrecks. Actually, the shift from oil and natural gas in energy production to wind and solar power decreases marine shipping markedly, whereby the total amount of carbon dioxide is decreased more than calculated from the shift in energy production alone.

In addition to the COP-29 being held in Azerbaijan, the presidential elections of USA were bad news for combatting climate change. The president-elect Donald Trump is a climate denier, saying that climate change is a hoax. He has further said that in his presidential term USA will withdraw from climate pacts and increase oil and gas drilling.

Although the probability of climate change-induced natural catastrophes has clearly increased, the climate deniers still think that nothing needs to be done. Silly, isn’t it.