Climate diplomacy is facing one of its sternest tests at the 29th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), currently taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries, including T&T, have assembled for the annual summit on climate change at a time when its centrepiece, the landmark Paris Agreement, is severely at risk.
The implications for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like ours could not be more dire. COP aims to curb global warming below 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic harm to the planet, but the world remains on track to exceed 3°C by the end of this century.
The climate alarms are getting louder and more frequent. The latest State of the Climate report—released in a year that is set to be the first above 1.5 degrees of warming—warns that 'the future of humanity hangs in the balance' and calls for more urgent phasing out of fossil fuels. Every tenth of a degree of warming brings on much more extreme weather.
For SIDS in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea, that means an increased risk of catastrophic coastal and inland flooding brought on by higher magnitude rainfall, extreme wave height, storm surges, and sea level rise.
The threat remains high even if global warming is limited to 1.5⁰C, as it is estimated that more than a fifth of SIDS populations will still be exposed to flooding.
Funding to build climate resilience is therefore a critical requirement for T&T and other SIDS and is a key agenda item at COP29. It is estimated that our group of nations needs around $1 trillion a year and $2.4 trillion by 2030 to meet climate finance needs. How much money developed nations will provide and who should provide climate finance remains a contentious issue.
Even if new global commitments are made at COP29 to significantly reduce carbon emissions, ensuring they are backed up by action to mitigate potential loss and damage in SIDS remains a major challenge. COP29 is taking place just ahead of a February 2025 deadline for nations to provide updates on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that are at the heart of the Paris Agreement’s goal of curbing the rise in global temperatures.
However, so far the target of containing heating to 1.5°C has not been met and may have become more difficult to achieve. The re-election of Donald Trump is likely to reduce the US’s carbon-cutting commitments to zero, as he had pledged during his campaign to exit the Paris Climate Agreement. This could have huge implications for any agreements reached at COP 29, as the US is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. There is concern that a US withdrawal from the pact could influence other high-emitting nations to deprioritize their emissions reductions.
Unfortunately, the worst consequences will be felt by the nations that contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions—SIDS.
That is why these voices need to be heard over the next few days as critical decisions are tabled at the climate summit. Delayed or watered-down agreements, particularly on all-important issues of funding, will hurt the countries facing the biggest threats from climate change.
