STATEMENT: Who’s Really Running Down The Clock At COP29?

On Friday, November 22nd, 2024, Rachel Rose Jackson, Director of Climate Research and Policy for Corporate Accountability released the following statement on the state of play as we near the end of COP29 in Azerbaijan:

"While the COP29 clock ticks closer to possible overtime in Baku, it’s critical that we all see this for what it is– a concerted attempt by polluting countries and corporations to run out the clock of climate action. We have had decades to take the action necessary to avoid the climate crisis by keeping fossil fuels in the ground and by scaling up real solutions, but economic and political systems that prioritize profit and corporate greed over life have wasted every second. Over the last years, there have been hundreds of opportunities to keep 1.5 C alive and avoid planetary peril. All of these opportunities were utterly wasted, at the bidding of Big Polluters and the world’s largest polluting governments like the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and others that will not relent until they have squeezed every drop of oil out of the earth that they stand to make a dollar from.

This wasted time has meant that there are millions who have lost their lives, billions of climate refugees, trillions of dollars in annual climate debt owed, and immeasurable and in many cases irreversible harm to communities across the Global South and Indigenous Peoples.

From the beginning, the UN climate talks ticking toward a close in Baku were determined to continue this legacy of dangerous distractions. From day one, the supposed ‘finance COP’ has clearly been the ‘false solutions COP.’ The very first day kicked off with an extraordinary departure from protocol when dangerous and loophole-ridden rules on carbon markets were rammed through before any negotiations to strengthen them could even formally take place, despite protests from multiple Global South governments and mounting evidence that these schemes do not reduce emissions. This meant the talks began with delivering Big Polluters a get-out-of-jail-free card on top of millions of guaranteed junk polluting allowances that will allow them to continue fueling the climate crisis. Then, when negotiations did officially begin, countries like the United States and United Kingdom took their diplomatic gloves off and began serving punch after punch to any and all who attempted to advance concrete measures to deliver the owed and now long overdue climate finance. Instead we see them offering debt swaps, private sector loans, and paltry sums that will do nothing to reform the systems that spur the climate crisis or mitigate the damage already done.

Now, these manipulators of time know that if they keep everyone running laps for long enough and if they keep lighting fires in enough negotiating rooms at once, resource-strapped Global South negotiators will not be able to keep up. Some Global South countries have only a handful of delegates covering every topic at these talks, and are outnumbered by the troves of Global North country negotiators who can pack multiple rooms at once. These same Global North delegates know that if they take to the microphones and flex the might of their global PR machines stating their intent to not allow the talks to end until the outcome is ‘strong’ enough while pointing the finger in the other direction, their rhetoric will position them not as those responsible for inaction but as the climate champions. All of this while more than 1,770 fossil fuel lobbyists are slithering around these halls, striking down attempts to end the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action.

These climate bullies have not let up, and this is why COP29 has no time left to waste. On account of this ultra marathon of time waste, life as we know it now hangs in the balance, globally. Not just for millions, but for billions. Not just in the Global South, but from the Philippines to India to California to Bolivia to Italy to Mozambique.

We cannot allow these bullies and snakes to poison this chance for a livable planet, for climate justice, and what could be our last chance to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The world needs to know that the clock of climate action is running out in Baku. Before time’s up, we need the Global North to finally provide the long overdue climate debt in the form of public finance to communities to the tune of at least $5 trillion annually. Before time’s up, we need an outright rejection of dangerous distractions like carbon markets, carbon capture and storage, and geo-engineering. These false solutions have never led to a decrease in emissions and must be forever cast aside in favor of the people-led, proven, and cost effective solutions currently being sidelined. Before time’s up, we need a fast, fair, and forever phase out of fossil fuels. Before time’s up, we need the same corporate snakes that have fueled this crisis and that are fueling war machines around the world to be weeded out.

So far, COP29 has served only Big Polluters and is set to lock in decades more of fossil fuels. Before time’s up, it must stop the cheating and the greenwashing and deliver the real action the world demands."

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