Michael Jacobs

Nov 24, 2024 | themandarin.com.au | Michael Jacobs

When a negotiation consists of one side asking for money and the other offering it, there’s not really much doubt about who has the whip hand. And so it proved in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the final day of the UN climate conference COP29. At 5pm on Saturday (as usual, the day after the scheduled close), the poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations walked out of the negotiations.

Nov 24, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Michael Jacobs

When a negotiation consists of one side asking for money and the other offering it, there’s not really much doubt who has the whip hand. And so it proved in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the final day of the UN climate conference COP29. At 5pm on Saturday (as usual, the day after the scheduled close), the poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations walked out of the negotiations.

Nov 21, 2024 | themandarin.com.au | Michael Jacobs

Whoever decided to hold the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro at the same time as the UN COP29 climate conference in Baku clearly had a sense of humour. Would heads of state meeting in Brazil this week agree to the same things as their environment ministers meeting 12,000 kilometres away in Azerbaijan? It turns out that the answer — comically or tragically, according to taste — is no. The big advance at last year’s COP28 was that countries committed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels”.

Nov 11, 2024 | themandarin.com.au | Michael Jacobs

To say that the election of Donald Trump hasn’t created the ideal backdrop to the 29th annual UN climate change conference, COP29, would be something of an understatement. An already fraught negotiation process — not to mention a world whose average temperature this year will almost certainly exceed the UN target limit of 1.5°C — could do without the climate-denier-in-chief at the helm of the world’s second-largest polluter.

Nov 10, 2024 | insidestory.org.au | Michael Jacobs

To say that the election of Donald Trump hasn’t created the ideal backdrop to the 29th annual UN climate change conference, COP29, would be something of an understatement. An already fraught negotiation process — not to mention a world whose average temperature this year will almost certainly exceed the UN target limit of 1.5C — could do without the climate-denier-in-chief at the helm of the world’s second-largest polluter.