What is COP29 and where is it?

World leaders are set to arrive at a big annual UN climate meeting hoping to rein in rising global temperatures, which are making deadly events like the recent floods in Spain far worse.

A key aim at this year’s meeting in Azerbaijan is agreeing on how to get more cash to poorer countries to help them curb their planet-warming gases and to help them cope with the growing impacts of climate change.

But the US election victory of Donald Trump – a known climate sceptic – as well as wars and cost of living crises are proving a distraction, and some important leaders are not attending.

Hosts Azerbaijan are also under intense scrutiny over their human rights record, as well as accusations they are using the meeting to line up fossil fuel deals.

COP29 is the world’s most important meeting on climate change. It is led by the UN, and this year’s event, the 29th such gathering, will run from 11-22 November. It is being held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a central Asian country located between Russia and Iran.

COP stands for “Conference of the Parties”, and in this case, the parties are the countries that have ratified a treaty called the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

That document was signed back in 1992, by almost 200 countries. The COP is the decision-making body of that agreement and representatives of these countries meet every year to negotiate the best approaches to tackling the root causes of climate change.

Presidents and prime ministers normally attend these conferences at the start to provide impetus. But this year the leaders of some of the biggest economies and biggest carbon emitters are notably absent. US President Joe Biden, China’s leader Xi Jinping and France’s President Emmanuel Macron will be absent, as will European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s Olaf Schulz and India’s Narendra Modi.

They are staying away for a range of reasons, but it won’t help the conference get off to a strong start. Leaders who do attend will also have lots of other issues on their minds, including two expensive and difficult wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and global financial problems.

“No world leader is arriving with climate change at the number one spot in their inbox,” Prof Thomas Hale at Oxford university explains.

There’s also an underlying feeling that Azerbaijan doesn’t have the diplomatic or financial clout to secure a significant agreement in Baku.

Many leaders are taking the view that progress is more likely at next year’s COP30 in Brazil.

A key question this year is money.

Under the Paris agreement signed in 2015, world leaders pledged to try to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C. For that to happen countries need to ramp up their efforts to cut warming gases.

As part of the agreement, countries committed to develop a new cash target for developing nations by 2025. This money would be used to help emerging economies cut their carbon and adapt to the worst impacts of rising temperatures.

Getting agreement on a new finance target is seen as a critical step in building trust between rich and poor nations as, so far, the track record hasn’t been great.

African countries and small island states want to see climate finance in total reach over a $1tn a year by 2030.

Up to now countries like China and the Gulf States have been classified as developing economies and been exempt from contributing.

According to the EU and other wealthy countries, that must change if the overall amount of cash is to be increased.

Governments’ plans for tackling climate change in their own countries could also be a tricky issue. They must update their action plans every five years (the next deadline is February.)

Some countries will release their strategies at this COP, but if they’re weak and look unlikely to stop global warming rising beyond 1.5C, then it could cause problems with countries on the front lines of climate change.

And are the fossil fuel agreements passed at the last climate talks still standing? There were signs in the G20 talks this year that some countries wanted to roll back on promises to move away from burning oil, coal and gas.

You don’t need to look far to see trouble brewing. Major UN talks on protecting nature collapsed two weeks ago in Colombia when nations couldn’t agree key goals.

Azerbaijan has big plans to expand gas production, by up to a third, over the next decade. Some observers worry that a country with that goal is in charge of a conference that aims to transition away from fossil fuels.

These fuels are one of the main causes of climate change because they release planet-warming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide when burned for energy.

There are also concerns, reported by the BBC, that Azerbaijani officials are using the climate conference to boost investment in the country’s national oil and gas company.

There are also deep reservations about holding this key event in a country with a poor human rights record, where political opposition isn’t tolerated.

The US president-elect is a known climate sceptic who has called efforts to boost green energy a “scam” and his victory has been seen by climate experts as a major setback.

He won’t actually be at COP29, and President Biden’s team will push for progress, but they know that anything they agree to will not bind the new administration.

With Trump’s election the US will likely withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and from providing finance.

However it’s also possible that Trump’s re-election might drive a new sense of unity, even building a coalition who might agree a major step on money for poorer countries.

Experts argue that the climate crisis, and our collective response to it, will outlast a second Trump term.

The warning alarms from the climate could not be stronger this year.

It is now “virtually certain” that 2024 – a year punctuated by intense heatwaves and deadly storms – will be the world’s warmest on record, according to projections by the European climate service.

And we’ve seen the impacts of warmer oceans with very powerful hurricanes Helene and Milton slamming into the US in the summer. The devastating flooding that killed at least 200 people in Spain in October was also fuelled by higher sea temperatures in the Mediterranean.

“Climate change is a cumulative problem. That means that with every year of delay, there is additional warming that we commit our planet to. Now is the time that we need to take action,” explains Prof Joeri Rogelj at Imperial College London.

In the short-term, agreements at COP can change how nations build their economies, like pushing the development of green power. That can affect where we get our energy from and how much we pay for it in our bills.

It can also commit countries to paying large sums of money into funds for poorer countries. In the UK this currently comes from aid budgets paid for by tax-payers, although private financial institutions are expected to contribute significantly.

In the long-term, the talks aim to build a safer, cleaner world for everyone and prevent the worst of climate change.