The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has brought to COP29 testimony of how the climate crisis has a deadly impact on people’s lives. Sánchez took advantage of his intervention in the plenary session of the Baku Climate Conference to “warn of a terrible truth that science has been pointing out for too long and, even so, some continue to despise: climate change kills.” And he recalled that the climate crisis “has just contributed to the death of more than 220 of my compatriots in Spain” in reference to the victims of the floods caused by the recent DANA.
Sánchez has insisted that “there is only one thing as important as helping the victims of this misfortune in Valencia, which is to prevent it from happening again.” “If we do not act, our countries will suffer,” he continued. “This is an existential threat that many governments hesitate to face. They brake when they need to accelerate. Returning to oil or combustion cars knowing that this formula will lead us to disaster.”
The Chief Executive concluded by saying that “as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, I come to say that we act. May we stop dragging our feet. Let’s save lives, save economies and save the planet.”
The countdown and absences
Before Sánchez’s words, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, spoke before the plenary session of the summit to remember that “the ticking sounds” of a “countdown that has already begun to limit the increase in global temperature at 1.5ºC”. And then he has done what he called a “master class in climate destruction.” Among the extreme events he has listed “the thousands of pilgrims killed by unbearable heat” or, precisely, “the floods that tear apart populations and destroy infrastructure.” “All of these disasters are being fueled by human-caused climate change. “No country is saved.”
Also at the inauguration, the president of host Azerbaijan, Ilhan Aliyev, repeated his mantra that “oil and gas are a gift from God” and that countries “should not be blamed for having them and bringing them to the market because the “The market needs them.” He then criticized Western countries for “the hypocrisy” of buying their country’s gas and then giving them lessons.
Some leading figures have not attended the round of high-level political interventions at this COP. For example, the Chinese president Xi Jinping – although he does not usually attend these meetings in person – or the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – who did intervene a year ago.
Oil and gas are a gift from God and countries should not be blamed for having them and bringing them to the market because the market needs them.
Ilham Aliyev
— President of Azerbaijan
Nor has Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi – present at the Dubai summit in 2023 – approached Baku. Of this group of main polluters, US President Joe Biden has stayed at home. The voice of French President Emanuelle Macron or German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has not been heard.
The fact that these heads of state or government have not traveled to Azerbaijan does not mean that their countries are skipping the COP. In fact, the Chinese and US delegations continue to have great weight in these negotiations. Another thing is that, in the case of the United States, the current envoys are leaving before the arrival of the new president Donald Trump.
In this sense, it has just become known that Trump will place a former congressman named Lee Zeldin at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency with the mission of “ensuring fair and rapid deregulation” in this matter. Trump has brought back the old 2008 pro-oil slogan of the Republican Party, drill baby drill –drill baby drill–. He has also chosen Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the UN (the forum in which climate summits take place), who has fueled the hoax against Secretary General Antonio Guterres that “he has failed to condemn the Hamas terrorists.” for their barbaric and horrible atrocities.”
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