A reporter’s notebook from COP29, the big climate conference

After a 14 h flight from New York City, I am in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to cover COP29, the annual conference where delegates and advocacy groups from across the globe gather to deliberate on climate issues. This year, around 65,000 delegates registered for the meetup, which started Nov. 11 and is set to end Nov. 22. I am here for the final 72 h.

The conference’s overarching goal is to find ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which is necessary to curtail global warming’s ravaging impact.

This year, the discussion is all about money—specifically, what rich nations that have historically been the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases need to pay lower-income countries that bear the brunt of climate change, according to the Paris Agreement. These countries need the funds to adapt to the changing climate and transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. Their ask is $1.3 trillion per year for the next decade. So far, wealthy countries have agreed to pay $250 billion a year, which lower-income nations say is unacceptable.

Many might not know much about Baku. I had heard about Azerbaijan through Indian friends who had mentioned that it was becoming a popular “party destination.” But I knew little about its culture, local language, or even currency.

After checking into the hotel, jet-lagged and two cappuccinos down, I hailed a cab to Baku’s Olympic-sized soccer stadium, this year’s COP29 venue. Within 45 min of passing through the registration desk, I had walked almost 5 km, brushing shoulders with scientists, policy experts, VIP-looking delegates, and journalists from nations I can only sometimes find on the world map.

The venue spreads out across 617,000 m², and navigating it is not easy. Thankfully, volunteer students from local universities were directing the attendees. One could see protests by climate activists across the conference. Some held placards saying “Global North: pay up for climate finance,” and some shouted slogans such as “trillions, not millions.”

The press conferences at COP29 are where high-ranking ministers, diplomats, and advocacy group leaders make hard-hitting public statements.

In the final stretch of the conference, the rising level of frustration was palpable. I entered one jam-packed conference room, where leaders from emerging countries shared their thoughts on the ongoing negotiations. The Bolivian negotiator Diego Pacheco was asked his opinion on whether $200 billion as annual climate financing would be acceptable. “Is it a joke?” he said. “This is unfathomable. We cannot accept this.” In another press conference, an official said, “Just because we are at a football stadium doesn’t mean we play games,” referring to the rich nations’ negotiating tactics.

A new negotiating text draft is released during the conference every few days, and the atmosphere is particularly tense then. The carefully crafted language in the text is often deliberately left ambiguous. As they say, the devil is in the details.

On the day I arrived, the draft had just been pruned from over 24 pages to 10; by the last day, it had been cut to 5. Experts sat glued to their laptops, trying to make sense of what each word meant. Sometimes, even words such as “shall” and “should” have huge consequences, an attorney from the Center for International Environmental Law, a nonprofit environmental law organization, told me.

Like other journalists, I am nail-bitingly waiting to see if there will be a deal. For now, the wealthy nations have offered $250 billion a year, but that is unacceptable, according to press conferences and the experts I talked to. With the clock ticking, it is unclear if negotiators will strike a deal or not. Some say a decision on climate finance may be deferred to COP30 next year, which will be held in Brazil.