By Zeina Shahla
THIS was my second Conference of the Parties, after attending COP28 in Dubai. Last year, while struggling to comprehend the complex dynamics of this vast summit, I learned, wide-eyed, that the search for climate justice takes us down a very long and thorny path.
This year, moving each day through the huge, fancy event space in and beside Baku stadium, and seeing thousands of people running from one place to another around the clock, I kept asking myself: “Where are we – in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and other countries in the region – in all of these discussions? Are our voices being heard?”
Hemming the shoreline that snakes south from Baku are countless oil drilling platforms of different colours and sizes – the fiefdom of the Azerbaijan state oil company SOCAR. In the foreground, on the coastal road, were huge banners with slogans such as “COP29, in solidarity for a green world”: just one of the glaring contradictions that will live long in my memory after two weeks on the Caspian Sea.
A few kilometres away, in a glamorous mountain area we were visiting, we saw spots of oil floating on the surface of the earth. We smelt it. Why not? We were, after all, in an oil country: In fact, the first country in the world to start industrial oil drilling and extraction back in 1840.
The big picture backdrop to Baku was runaway global warming and the quest to secure at least a minimum level of justice for the inequities of the harm it causes. But while there, I couldn’t help but think of the everyday struggles we face in my country, Syria, and that so many others do in similar contexts: wars, destruction, under-development, climate disasters, sanctions, and all with such little means to do anything about them.
During the first week of the conference, my city, Damascus, was bombed twice by Israeli airstrikes. I lived very hard moments trying to check if my family and friends were OK. Unfortunately, it is something that has been happening regularly in the past few months, but how could I explain all my mixed feelings to people in Azerbaijan? Now that I am back, and with the news of military escalation again in the north of Syria, I just feel trapped again in this cycle of fear and instability.
Starting with hope
In the first days of COP29, I believed that reaching a deal to take us at least some way towards climate justice would not be that difficult. We were, after all, here at the “Finance COP” as everyone was calling it: Governments were due to agree on the next climate finance goals, or what is called the “New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)”.
Vulnerable countries were asking for $1.3 trillion annually to help cope with the effects of climate disasters, adapt to them more effectively, and transition away from the fossil fuels that have done so much to cause them. And while not expecting things to move very smoothly, the existence of hundreds of climate justice voices, strong negotiating groups, and many different civil society actors all around me gave me high hopes these goals could be achieved.
From dawn till dusk, a clamour of sit-ins was also taking place, mainly in two or three spots inside the so-called blue zone near where the negotiations were going on. Tireless demonstrators of all ages and from many different countries were raising their demands: end fossil fuel use; stop funding and fueling wars and genocide; make polluters pay their climate debts; spread knowledge among Indigenous people; lead a just and equitable transition.
Many demonstrations and sit-ins were dedicated to Palestine and Lebanon. Hundreds of people were wearing the keffiyeh and other symbols to show their solidarity with Palestinians. Many were demanding a fuel embargo on Israel due to its continuous assault on Gaza and Lebanon, raising slogans and chanting: “No climate justice on occupied land”; “No climate justice with blood on our hands”.
Some told me the UN organisers of the conference had tried to restrict their protests, especially one where demonstrators were reading out loud the names of Gaza war victims.
Allowing for civil society space used to be a proud trademark of COPs. But in recent years, it’s the restrictions on that space that have become an increasingly common feature, in Egypt (COP27), in Dubai (COP28). Even so, the sit-ins in Baku continued, albeit in limited spaces.
What the pavilions tell you
Not far away from all these protests, a different kind of hustle was happening – in the delegation offices and pavilions, where contradictions kept chasing me.
There were these very fancy pavilions for countries like Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, China, Brazil, and other rich countries.
But I was searching for my country’s pavilion, and I couldn’t find anything for Syria – not even an office for the delegates – and this was the case in many poor and developing countries. We were told that having a pavilion, even in the smallest possible space, would cost not less than $200.000, and the exorbitant costs weren’t only for the pavilions, as one would need not less than $40 daily just to have a coffee and some food at the COP venue.
This was something many attendees could in no way afford, so they had to go outside, where prices were much cheaper. In fact, some attendees had to miss meetings because they had to go such a long way from the venue just to find decent affordable food.
While moving around the pavilions, I came across an extra-luxurious one that stood out. It was emblazoned with slogans such as, “From desert into oasis”.
I was surprised, to say the least, to realise it was Israel’s one. I couldn’t understand how such a large space had been afforded to a country that is destroying the environment continuously and deliberately in Palestine and Lebanon, and through its relentless war on Gaza.
An event that lost its meaning
Some “strange” activities were taking place at the venue, making me wonder sometimes what the whole event was about. Weren’t the main goals this year supposed to be climate finance and climate justice for the countries most affected by climate change?
At one stage, I even saw a group of people holding a globe and examining it with a stethoscope, trying to figure out “where it hurts”. I passed a small pavilion for a tech company boasting: “We have the ultimate solution for the climate change problem.”
While it seemed like everyone at the event believed in – or was flogging – their own magical solution, I was left wondering whether we were only talking to each other. Was there any meaning to it at all? Dropping in at lots of meetings, conferences, and side events, I found some with only two or three people attending – sometimes even sleeping there.
On the second day of the gathering, while I was taking the shuttle from the hotel to the stadium, a group of men in beautiful suits and ties were jovially greeting each other with “Happy COP” instead of “Good morning”.
Maybe that’s a standard greeting between “COPPERS”. Unfortunately, with the final outcome of the summit only $300 billion a year by 2035 – mainly as loans, not grants – this COP wasn’t happy for the thousands who came from afar looking for some kind of climate justice.
I’m not sure if such big events can truly be “happy”, but they are supposed at least to be one of the few places where we can get our voices heard. Did we succeed this time? I don’t think so.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
