By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 13 2024 – During his electoral campaign, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump highlighted that the U.S. holds more oil reserves than any other country, even surpassing Saudi Arabia. In this context, he openly encouraged big businesses to tap into these reserves with the words: ’Drill, baby, drill.’

The US president-elect has also threatened to impose record tariffs on electric cars’ imports from China, by increasing them between 100% and 200%, and has hinted at higher taxes on European vehicles as well.

As the U.S. remains the second-largest global contributor to climate damage after China, do you expect that this year’s climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan (11-22 November) can achieve what all the previous 28 sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have failed to?

In other words, can COP29 come out with effective, verifiable, legally binding decisions to mobilise the amount of financial resources (between 187 and 359 billion US dollars annually) to overcome the current huge adaptation finance gap?

Or shall this yet another expensive gathering end up with the usual ‘politically correct’ Declaration that will be announced as “landmark,” “historical,” although a non-binding step to halt the growing “climate carnage,” as called by the United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres.

So far, major political –and financial– world’s leaders decided to skip the summit, as is the case of the United States, the European Commision, and Germany, among others.

The Huge Financial Gap

The life-saving amount required to heal peoples and Nature –187 to 359 billion US dollars annually– is just a fraction of what the world’s military powers spend –annually– on weapons whose function is to kill peoples and Nature.

See what an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports:

• Estimated global military expenditure rose for the ninth consecutive year in 2023, to surpass $2.4 trillion,
• Despite the consequent growth in demand for weapons and continued efforts to meet that demand, arms companies have found it difficult to boost production.
• The 6.8 per cent increase in total military spending in 2023 was the largest rise since 2009 and pushed estimated world spending to the highest level recorded by SIPRI.
• As a result, the global military burden—world military expenditure as a share of world gross domestic product (GDP)—rose to 2.3 per cent.
• Governments allocated an average of 6.9 per cent of their budgets to the military or 306 US dollars per person.
• Estimated military spending increased across all five geographical regions for the first time since 2009.

‘America First’

“The United States remained by far the largest military spender in the world.”

The USA’s expenditure of 916 billion US dollars was more than the combined spending of the 9 other countries among the top 10 spenders, and 3.1 times as large as that of the second biggest spender, China, reports SIPRI, which is ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide

During the same year -2023- up to 39 of the 43 countries in Europe increased military spending. The 16 per cent surge in total European spending was driven by a 51 per cent rise in Ukrainian spending and a 24 per cent rise in Russian spending.

The Israel–Hamas war was the main driver for the 24 per cent increase in Israel’s military expenditure, adds SIPRI in its Yearbook 2024.

The Big Polluters

The United States and other rich, industrialised powers, like Europe, and Japan, are the largest polluters, as is the case of China and India, while being those with the biggest capability to reduce the financial adaptation gap they have been causing.

See what a global movement of people who are fighting injustice for a more equal world, working across regions in 79 countries, with thousands of partners and allies: Oxfam International unveils in its report: “Carbon Inequality Kills”:

• Super Yachts and Jets of Europe’s Elite Emit More Carbon Pollution in a Week than the World’s Poorest 1% Emits in a Lifetime
• One ultra-rich European takes an average of 140 flights a year, spending 267 hours in the air and producing as much carbon as the average European would in over 112 years.
• In the same period, an ultra-rich European on their yachts emits, on average, as much carbon as an ordinary European would in 585 years.

On the climate adaptation financial gap, the report highlights what it called Make rich polluters pay.

“Climate finance needs are enormous and escalating, especially in Global South countries that are withstanding the worst of climate impacts.

“A wealth tax up to 5% on European multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise 286.5 billion euros annually. , supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis.”

The Victims Pay?

Another global movement of more than 10 million people in over 150 countries and territories who campaign to end abuses of human rights: Amnesty International, has reported.

“With millions of people already displaced by climate change disasters in Africa, the richer countries most responsible for global warming must agree at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan “to fully pay for the catastrophic loss of homes and damage to livelihoods taking place across the continent.”

Africa’s contribution to the climate carnage amounts to a neglectable 2 per cent.

And the suicidal war on Nature and Humans goes on

On the eve of the COP29, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the year 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of this century, the world has witnessed more than 2,500 disasters and 40 major conflicts.

A Misleading Claim

By the way, the elected president of the United States’ statement that his country has the largest oil reserves in the world, including Saudi Arabia, is anything but accurate.

According to the WorldAtlas’ list of the top 10 oil reserves by country, Venezuela ranks first with 303 billion barrels, followed by Saudi Arabia with 267 billion barrels, while the United States comes the 9th, with oil reserves amounting to 55 billion barrels.

In short, for the world’s biggest military powers, wars are worth spending far more than saving lifes. And the oil business that kills Mother Nature and all that lives on it, also ranks hight among their top priorities.

‘Drill, baby, drill’

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 13 2024 – The Latin American and Caribbean region is a student with good grades in renewable energy, but not in energy efficiency, and has a long way to go in contributing to global climate action and overcoming the vulnerability of its population and economies.

The recent energy crises in Ecuador and Cuba, with power outages ranging from 14 hours a day to days at a time, and the threats posed by droughts – which this year hit Bogotá and the Brazilian Amazon, for example – to the hydroelectric systems that power the region, are proof of this.

Among the 660 million Latin Americans and Caribbeans enduring the various impacts of climate change, there are at least 17 million people, some four million households, who still lack access to electricity.“Countries in the region are very much affected by barriers in their investment ecosystems, access to financing, whether due to institutional problems, policies or legal security”: Alfonso Blanco.

That scenario comes under new scrutiny at the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which began its two-week run on Monday 11 in Baku, capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan.

The annual conference of 196 states parties has climate action financing as its main theme and will also review the global commitment made a year ago to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency.

The COP28 in Dubai proposed a global installed capacity of 11,000 gigawatts (Gw, equivalent to 1,000 megawatts, Mw) of energy from renewable sources by 2030, 7,000 Gw more than today. This is unlikely, judging by the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The NDCs serve as commitments by states to adopt measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so that global warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, as stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which concluded the COP21.

Large solar power plant in the Sertao region, in the arid northeast of Brazil, installed by the Spanish company Naturgy. Credit: Naturgy

In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, “the installed capacity for electricity generation is already 58% renewable energy, and in 11 countries it exceeds 80%,” Uruguayan expert Alfonso Blanco, director of energy transition and climate at the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue, told IPS.

According to the Latin American Energy Organisation (Olade), the region’s installed electricity generation capacity was 480,605 megawatts (MW) in 2022, with about 300,000 MW produced from renewable sources – 200,000 MW from dams – and the rest from non-renewable sources, mainly fossil fuels.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) put the region’s installed electricity generation capacity at 342,000 MW last year, with advances in solar energy installations, with a capacity of 64,513 MW, and wind power, which reached 49,337 MW, as the hydroelectric source remains stable at 202,000 MW.

The Latin American and Caribbean region “can increase its capacity to generate electricity from sources such as solar or wind, but it can’t triple its hydroelectric capacity,” said Blanco, who was executive secretary of Olade in the period 2017-2023.

Diana Barba, coordinator of energy diplomacy at the Colombian think tank Transforma, also believes that “tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 does not apply to Latin America and the Caribbean”.

“The next step is to maintain the proportion… until 2040, and in general to reduce the trend towards the use of fossil fuels,” Barba told IPS.

An auto parts factory in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Credit: México Industry

Elusive efficiency

Green energy capacity figures are improving every year in the region, but energy efficiency figures are not keeping pace. Experts from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have shown that only the Caribbean sub-region has made significant progress compared to the first decade of this century.

Measured in kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per 1,000 dollars of gross domestic product (GDP), the Caribbean consumed 110 kgoe during the 2001-2010 decade and decreased that expenditure to 67 units in 2022, while the region as a whole fell from 95 to 87 kgoe.

In that period, the Andean sub-region was able to fall from 108 kgoe to 90, Central America and Mexico from 85 to 70, and the Southern Cone remained at 90, although the figure is 80 kgoe if Brazil is excluded.

Efficiency, in which the region shows more modest results, is fundamental for the triple purpose of saving resources, reducing costs and, a primary objective at climate COPs, reducing the carbon emissions that pollute the environment and heat the atmosphere, precipitating climate change.

In this regard, the World Economic Forum, which each year gathers political and economic leaders, advocates electrifying transport, and above all stresses that NDCs should focus on demand and supply to improve industrial energy efficiency, only mentioned in 30% of the world’s NDCs.

In transport, an Olade study highlights that the fleet of electrified light-duty vehicles multiplied more than 14 times in the region in 2020-2024, with a total of 249,079 units in circulation by the first half of 2024.

This market – which entails greater energy efficiency and drastic reductions in carbon emissions – is led by Brazil with 152,493 vehicles, followed by Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Chile, but Costa Rica has the best per capita figure, with 34 electrified cars per 10,000 inhabitants, followed by Uruguay with 17.

However, as far as manufacturing industry is concerned, with an annual GDP of 874 billion dollars (14% of regional GDP), ECLAC records that it consumes more renewable energy each year and less fossil fuels such as residual fuel oil.

But its energy intensity – an indicator that measures the ratio of energy consumed to GDP – went from 232 tonnes of oil equivalent per million dollars of value added in the 1990s to 238 TOE in 2022, suggesting that the region’s industrial sector has not improved its energy efficiency.

Rows of solar panels on the roofs of Metrobús stations in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Credit: Caba

Four South Americans

To assess the necessary and possible efforts of each country to contribute to global renewable energy capacity targets, Transforma studied four cases, those of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

Barba explained that Argentina and Brazil were considered for their membership of the G20 (Group of 20 industrialised and emerging economies), Colombia for its capacity for action and Chile for its decision to accelerate the end of the operation of thermal power plants, while insufficient information was received from Mexico.

Argentina could take advantage of its onshore wind energy potential and large-scale solar energy, but Barba argues that “it would be super-difficult” to triple its energy matrix in a few years, which is only 37% covered by renewables, and that its current president, Javier Milei, “is betting on fossil fuels”.

Brazil can take advantage of its large-scale renewable energy potential, but Barba notes “contradictory signals” regarding its NDCs, by favouring hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation in the Amazon “instead of sending a very clear signal to close these projects in strategic ecosystems”.

Chile could reach 96% renewable generation in its electricity matrix by 2030, taking advantage of sources such as solar, wind, thermal and geothermal, and Colombia could reach 80% renewables in installed electricity capacity if it continues to multiply its solar and wind energy installations.

Of the countries analysed, Chile is the only one with a specific target of 10% reduction in its energy intensity, established in its national energy efficiency plan 2022-2026, and Transforma suggests that the other countries adopt similar targets in their plans for 2030.

On the other hand, there are calls for savings, considering that energy efficiency is “the first fuel”, the most cost-effective source or, in other words, that the cleanest energy is the one that is not used.

Oil exploitation in the Brazilian Amazon at the Urucu base in the Coari area along the Amazon River. Credit: Petrobras

A question of finance

Giovanni Pabón, Director of Energy at Transforma, has stated that “the issue of financing covers everything. If we don’t have secure financing, we can talk about a lot of things, but in the end it is very difficult to achieve the goals we require” in the Paris Agreement.

Blanco highlights that, in order to tackle their transition to green energy, countries in the region “are very much affected by the existing barriers in their investment ecosystems, access to financing, whether due to institutional problems, policies or legal security”.

“Overcoming that barrier is not impossible, but it requires work and political will, which is often lacking,” he added.

He recalled that countries with strong extractive industries, which are more oriented towards fossil fuels and allocate subsidies to them, stand out in that scenario.

Finally, Blanco considered that COP29, the second consecutive one in an oil-producing country, is “a transitional summit”, preparatory to COP30, which will be held in 2025 in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará, with Brazil as host and leader, and could produce clearer and firmer results and commitments in terms of renewable energies and energy efficiency.

By Umar Manzoor Shah
BAKU, Nov 13 2024 – Riad Meddeb, Director of the Sustainable Energy Hub at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), stressed the urgency of finding innovative financial solutions during COP29.

Meddeb was speaking to IPS in an exclusive interview at the conference. He said the negotiations were expected to focus heavily on finance—a core issue that has historically hampered climate action in developing and least-developed nations.

The Finance COP Expectations

Meddeb highlighted the historical challenge of meeting the USD 100 billion annual target for climate finance, which has been a central but elusive goal in previous COPs. He noted that Azerbaijan’s COP 29 presidency aims to overcome this by ensuring the necessary funds are available, especially for countries most vulnerable to climate impacts. 

“This year’s COP is considered the ‘Finance COP’ because it’s crucial we not only set targets but also mobilize the resources to help countries adapt and mitigate climate impacts,” he explained.

A key focus will be developing sustainable financing mechanisms for countries that struggle with debt. Many nations in the global South face significant financial burdens, and accelerating their energy transitions requires resources that may be challenging to secure within their existing economic constraints. Meddeb also stressed the need for concrete financial schemes that can attract private sector investments to supplement international climate funding.

Riad Meddeb, Director of the Sustainable Energy Hub at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Progress at COP 28 and Hopes for COP 29

Reflecting on COP 28, Meddeb noted key successes, including establishing the Loss and Damage Fund and reaching consensus on a targeted increase in renewable energy capacity.

“The agreement to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030 was a significant breakthrough at COP28,” he said. “Now, COP29 must translate that ambition into action by securing the financial support needed to achieve these goals.”

Making sure that the commitments made at COP28 are more than just empty words is one of the main challenges going forward, according to Meddeb.

“By COP30, we want a global commitment on the pathway to adaptation and mitigation,” he added.

UNDP’s Role in the Climate Action Landscape

UNDP plays a critical role in translating international climate targets into real, on-the-ground actions. Through initiatives like the UN’s “Climate Promise,” UNDP supports countries in implementing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and operationalizing climate goals. Meddeb explained that UNDP is uniquely positioned to facilitate these efforts due to its extensive network of country offices in 170 nations. This network enables UNDP to address climate issues from a development perspective, integrating energy solutions into broader sectors such as health, education, and poverty alleviation.

“UNDP’s approach is not just about energy,” he said. “It’s about sustainable energy for development. We link energy needs with development needs, connecting climate action to real improvements in health, education, and economic opportunities. This is the difference UNDP makes.”

Addressing the Debt Issue in Climate Finance

A significant portion of the interview focused on the complex financial situations faced by many global South nations, where debt often limits capacity to implement ambitious climate plans. Meddeb pointed out that addressing these financial constraints is essential for equitable progress toward climate goals. He suggested that international financial institutions should provide debt relief or restructuring options to allow these countries to invest more readily in clean energy and climate adaptation.

“Pushing countries with heavy debt burdens to accelerate their energy transition requires a nuanced approach,” Meddeb said. “We need financial structures that acknowledge their debt situations while still allowing them to contribute meaningfully to global climate targets.”

Implementation of the Paris Agreement: From Words to Action

Meddeb stressed the importance of shifting the Paris Agreement’s commitments from paper to practice, especially regarding emission reductions by developed nations. He believes that developed countries have a moral obligation to reduce their carbon footprints, given their historical contribution to climate change and their financial capacity.

“The plan is clear, and it’s agreed upon by all parties in the Paris Agreement. Now it’s just about accelerating implementation,” he asserted. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel—we need to get it moving.”

When asked whether the current pace of implementation is sufficient, Meddeb offered a candid view: “The Secretary General was very clear—it’s now or never. We need optimism and ambition but also an unyielding focus on practical solutions. There are obstacles, yes, but there are solutions too. Together, we can save our planet.”

The Responsibility of Developed Nations Toward Vulnerable Countries

As climate impacts disproportionately affect poorer nations, Meddeb urged developed countries to support those bearing the brunt of climate change. He pointed to the Loss and Damage Fund as a critical mechanism for this purpose. Set up at COP28, the fund has already garnered around USD 700 million, and Meddeb hopes COP29 will build on this initial success by accelerating funding mobilization.

After all, as the UN secretary general António Guterres noted this week, while the Loss and Damage Fund was a victory, the initial capitalization of USD 700 million doesn’t come close to righting the wrong inflicted on the vulnerable.  “USD 700 million is roughly the annual earnings of the world’s ten best-paid footballers,” Guterres said.

Meddeb agrees. “Mobilizing funds for loss and damage is a positive first step. But we must continue pushing to ensure that the support reaches the most affected communities quickly and effectively.”

A Call to Action

For Meddeb, the stakes could not be higher, and the time for incremental progress is over. He said that COP 29 must not only focus on setting ambitious goals but also make real progress on securing the necessary financing to turn aspirations into achievements.

“Now is the moment to turn pledges into action,” he said. “We’ve reached a point where the world cannot afford to wait any longer. This is the COP for finance, and we need to ensure the resources are in place for meaningful climate action.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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