Photo/Illutration Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan president, speaks during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit on Nov. 12 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo)

The 29th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) opened on Nov. 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

International cooperation is being shaken by the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and voters in the United States have chosen Donald Trump, a climate denier, as their next president.

But climate change is a crisis for the entire human race and the world must unite to fight it.

Next year, it will be a decade since the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Despite an inherent conflict of interest among its signatories, the framework has so far served to control climate change and deal with related damage.

The 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact called for capping the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees from the pre-Industrial Revolution level, as well as for “phasing down” coal-fired power generation.

The following year, a foundation was established to provide financial assistance to offset the “loss and damage” caused by global warming.

And last year’s COP28 agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, aiming to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.

The reality, however, is less positive. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported last year that the rise in the global average temperature has already reached 1.1 degrees, and warned strongly that measures to be taken over the next decade will continue to affect the world for thousands of years to come.

The report also noted that to keep the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees, greenhouse gas emissions must start decreasing by 2025, so that by 2035 the emission volume will have been brought down 60 percent from the 2019 level.

The main focus of the ongoing COP29 in Azerbaijan is how to secure funding to assist developing nations.

Also to be followed closely are individual COP member nations’ new greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and their policies concerning fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear power and other energy sources.

Climate change threatens humanity with all kinds of natural disasters, water and food shortages and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

However, since decarbonization can have short-term impacts on the economy and people’s daily lives, many nations drag their feet when it comes to reviewing policies that involve vested interests.

The United States is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.

But Trump being a climate denier, he pulled America out of the Paris Agreement during his previous presidency. And while campaigning this past October, he said of fossil fuels, “We will frack, frack, frack and drill, baby, drill.”

Once he assumes office, it is feared that not only will he undo President Joe Biden’s legacy of America’s return to the Paris Agreement by pulling the nation out of it once again, but will also withhold climate financing for vulnerable developing nations.

According to a forecast by the meteorological information organization of the European Union, the global average temperature rise will exceed 1.5 degrees this year.

Even though this is only for this year, the situation is grave. Any slackening of climate control measures now will inevitably worsen matters for the present as well as the future.

Transitioning to renewable energies is a global option, and staying out of it may well cause nations to fall behind in technology and competition.

Japan needs to clearly understand that pursuing only its immediate interests will jeopardize its future.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 13

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