Climate meeting COP starts today in Baku, Azerbaijan, and here is a list of the horrors Trump is likely to bypass: ending fossil fuels, redoing food, billions for greening the planet, carbon credits

This newsletter for "development" professionals reveals what these conferences are about and their anti-human agenda

https://www.devex.com/news/devex-newswire-come-out-on-top-at-cop29-with-our-7-point-guide-108731

This COP is expected to have less glitz and glamor than last year’s confab in Dubai — and fewer people, with about half the attendance — but it likely won’t be short on disagreement, drama, high hopes, and a high potential for disappointment. All this comes at a time when climate change has now touched virtually every corner of the globe.

No pressure.

A core theme will be — what else? — money. Negotiators at what’s been dubbed the “finance COP” will haggle over something known as the new collective quantified goal or NCQG. The last such target was set in 2009 when high-income rich countries said they would mobilize $100 billion in annual climate finance for low- and middle-income countries by 2020, a goal they just barely hit in 2022, my colleague Ayenat Mersie writes.

Some models suggest lower-income countries need $1 trillion in climate finance annually, but if $100 billion a year was such a heavy lift, imagine what a haul 10 times that amount would be.

So what else is on the agenda?

• Remember when lower-income countries scored a big win with the establishment of a loss and damage fund? Well, now it’s time to flesh out the fund, including how much money should go into it and who’s willing to pay.

• The next set of nationally determined contributions, or NDCs — the targets countries set for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Climate Accord — is due by February 2025. Expect them to come up in discussions.

• Food systems finally took center stage at COP28 — long overdue given that food production drives about a third of global greenhouse emissions — but money remains ridiculously scarce. Although small-scale producers grow up to 80% of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa’s food, they get less than 1% of total climate finance.

• Last year’s COP ended in a deadlock over how to move forward on carbon credits. Negotiators, especially from Africa — where many of these offset projects would likely take place — are hoping for another shot this year.

• The last two COPs have been held in some interesting locales: The United Arab Emirates and Egypt are both petro-states with dubious human rights records. Dubai did produce a tempered agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Can heavily oil-dependent Baku build on that?

• Remember that little old U.S. election? Well, it’s going to loom large over COP. The last time Donald Trump was president, he promptly yanked the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Most expect him to do so again. What does that mean for U.S. commitments — let alone those of other nations — in Baku?

Read: 7 things to watch for at COP29, from funding to food systems