Rachel Rose Jackson, director of research and international policy on climate, shares reflections on the outcomes of this year’s U.N. climate treaty talks.
COP29 delivered not climate action, not climate debt, not climate justice, but a climate crisis on steroids. Ramping up carbon markets— which do not reduce emissions—and offering way too little public climate finance far too late means the legacy of COP29 will still be millions of lives that never needed to be lost. Global North governments like the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom will deploy their manipulative PR machines to celebrate themselves and blame others for kicking the can down the road, but these are the world’s largest historical polluters with the deepest fossil-fueled pockets, and they are the ones who are to blame. These governments will continue to spend trillions on the war machines that fuel genocide in Palestine and violence around the world, while coming to Baku offering nothing but bad deals that are worse than no deals. COP29 was a COP for and by Big Polluters–look no further than the nearly 1800 fossil fuel lobbyists that infiltrated these talks in Baku. We will not be silent while inaction continues to condemn people and the planet. We need real solutions, Real Zero, real climate finance–now.
