UN climate talks start as experts warn 2024 is heading for record heat

The latest round of international climate talks have kicked off in Azerbaijan as the UN warns 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record.

Sir Keir Starmer, whose Labour Government has made clean energy a key plank of its plans for the UK, has headed to the Cop29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, although many leaders including the US and Chinese presidents and European heads of state are not attending the talks.

While the Taliban are among the delegations who are attending the conference, Downing Street said the Prime Minister had no plans to meet with them.

As the conference kicked off, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation issued a “red alert” over the speed of climate change in a single generation, as it warned this year would break 2023’s record temperatures.

The WMO said the global average temperature for January to September 2024 was 1.54C above pre-industrial levels, based on analysis from six global datasets.

This breaches a key threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures to which countries have committed to limit global warming to avoid its worst impacts, though the WMO said it did not mean the world had failed to meet the goal over the long-term.

But temperatures are already at 1.3C of long term warming above pre-industrial levels, according to initial assessment by experts appointed by the WMO.

And the world is facing increasing sea level rise, record ocean heat battered by deadly storms, droughts, heatwaves and floods,

There could be much worse to come, as current climate policies by countries put the world on what UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has described as a “catastrophic” 3.1C of warming.

But with many leaders choosing not to attend the opening summit, and the talks hosted by oil-rich Azerbaijan, it is unclear how much progress will be made on key issues such as agreeing climate finance for poorer countries, as well as increasing ambition on emissions cuts and phasing out fossil fuels.

And the re-election of Donald Trump as US president last week will cast a shadow over the talks, as Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed climate change and pledged to curb environment legislation domestically and boost fossil fuels.

As the conference opened, UN climate chief Simon Stiell called on country delegations to agree a new global climate finance goal, warning that “every country pays a brutal price” if poorer nations could not afford to cut emissions quickly or build resilience into supply chains.

He told countries that “we mustn’t let 1.5 slip out of reach”.

Speaking against a background of geopolitical instability and what analysts have said is a trend towards climate scepticism in elections around the world this year, he also said: “Now is the time to show that global co-operation is not down for the count”.

In a press conference at the talks, US climate adviser John Podesta said Mr Trump will likely pull the United States out of the landmark Paris Agreement and try to roll back many of the Biden Administration’s signature climate moves, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that included $375 billion in climate spending.

He insisted though that the US would not revert back to the “energy system of the 1950s”.

Mr Podesta said: “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.

“This fight is bigger, still, because we are all living through a year defined by the climate crisis in every country of the world.”

Mr Podesta added that the Biden administration was still negotiating, despite the result of the election last week.

“We are here to work, and we are committed to a successful outcome at Cop29,” he said.

“We can and will make real progress on the backs of our climate committed states and cities, our innovators, our companies and our citizens, especially young people who understand more than most that climate change poses an existential threat that we cannot afford to ignore.”