As the opening date of this year’s COP29 climate meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, approached, the guest list continued to thin. Heads of state from France, Germany, Canada, China, India, Brazil, Russia and the United States, among others, bowed out. King Charles excused himself. Greta Thunberg boycotted.
Their reasons varied, from head injuries to domestic troubles to principled stands against the host country’s human rights record, but taken together, the regrets struck an ominous tone. Coming at the end of what is going down as the hottest year on record, it was easy to feel that the annual meetings of signatories to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), plus the circus of non-governmental organizations, lobbyists and negotiators that has grown up around them, have failed to deliver. Or,…
