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On 23 November, after two weeks of negotiations and a real possibility that a compromise would not be found, an agreement was reached between the almost 200 nations attending the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan. The newly approved climate finance target, although considered a success in that it avoided the failure of the conference, nevertheless left the countries of the South unhappy. In the previous days, specifically on 13 November, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spoke at the summit with a speech aimed at bringing the discussion back to pragmatism and orienting it to the reality of the economies and needs of individual states.
THE POINTS OF THE AGREEMENT
The agreement reached, however, has some rather interesting points that deserve specific reflection. In particular, the financing – compulsory for rich countries – of 300 billion dollars a year until 2035. With these funds, developing countries will be able to finance the energy transition, so as to adapt their economies and industries to the needs of climate change. Useful investments, according to the indications of Cop29, to get rid of coal, oil and gas, moving more and more towards the use of alternative and clean energies. Of course, funds will also be needed to deal, over time, with the damage caused by climate change, such as rising temperatures that can create problems for agriculture and other human activities. This was, of course, the most eagerly awaited target of the entire Cop29, just as it was the most discussed and criticised point. It must be said that this pledge replaces the previous one that aimed at 100 billion per year (2009 agreement expiring) but, despite this, it still represents a much lower threshold than the 1.3 trillion requested in the negotiations by the developing countries. It is, however, a figure that could, over the years, be adjusted upwards, especially in the face of private funding that the developed states can raise as well as income from a possible ‘global taxation’ that is currently only being studied.
The issue of transition away from fossil fuels is different. Something that was strongly desired in Dubai, in the main texts of this new summit has instead been set aside. Of course, implicit references are not lacking, especially when referring to last year’s text, but the long negotiating battle did not allow this concept to be reinforced by adopting a specific text at the end of this year’s Cop29. This was the objective of the European Union, in contrast to what many countries – including Italy – had said, expressing the intention to obtain here continuous monitoring, at least on an annual basis, of the efforts made by states to move away from dependence on fossil fuels. A very forward, at times out-of-context position, which was not accepted. Indeed, Von Der Leyen herself did not mention the transition in her statements, emphasising instead how this agreement serves to mark a new era for climate cooperation and finance. The agreement, Von Der Leyen commented, will ‘stimulate investment in clean transition, reducing emissions and strengthening resilience to climate change’, adding that ‘the EU will continue to play a leading role, focusing support on the most vulnerable’.
VOICES AGAINST
Naturally, the size of the agreement – significantly lower than the requests made earlier – was not welcomed by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The group, led by delegate Sunday Evans Njewa of Malawi, in fact branded the final Baku document as not ambitious enough, a goal that was misaligned with what they had expected to achieve after years of discussions and negotiations. An understandable position, if one looks at the initial request of 1.3 trillion a year, but one that perhaps clashes with the reality of the facts and the international scenario that formed the backdrop to this summit. Criticism naturally also came from the African Group negotiators. Here they complained of the agreement being too small and above all too late, especially for the African continent. At this juncture, the negotiators wanted to emphasise that they will continue to sound the alarm about the inadequate funding. A position also espoused by India, with official Leela Nandan speaking of an amount that is ‘abysmally paltry’. On the European front, it is France that is making its voice heard: according to the Elysée Palace, the agreement is not up to the challenges of the time.
ITALIAN PRAGMATISM
Partly in contrast to these positions, in the past few days Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken in Baku with an official speech that called the delegates to pragmatism and the responsibility of states before their citizens. The speech delivered by the Italian Premier drew attention to the needs and expectations, not only economic, of the countries of the European Union, even in the face of a green transition that need not be oriented and guided by blind preconceived ideology. The commitment to limiting the global temperature increase to within 1.5°C was the thread running through the reasoning, also starting from the Dubai targets. Among the many, we mention above all the desire to triple the world’s capacity to generate renewable energy, and to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. Meloni’s intention in her speech was to call for the cooperation of everyone, especially the main emitters of greenhouse gases, sharing responsibility in order to reach a synthesis and divide the divisions between developed countries, emerging economies and developing countries. A position that is not just window-dressing. Suffice it to say that Italy already allocates a large part of the more than four billion euros of the Climate Fund to the African continent, and Meloni confirmed that she wants to continue to support initiatives such as the Green Climate Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund, as well as to promote the involvement of multilateral development banks in these policies and financial operations.
Nonetheless, Prime Minister Meloni wanted to bring the summit participants back down to earth, arguing that the decarbonisation process must absolutely take into consideration the sustainability of the production and social systems of individual states, which can also greatly vary according to the specifics of regional and continental realities. In this way, Italy, as it has done on other occasions in Europe and at the G7 summit, is once again stressing an essential point, namely that ‘nature must be defended with man at the centre’. In this sense, aiming at an overly ideological and not at all pragmatic approach to these issues runs the risk of distancing the achievement of the goals set by the international community. Instead, the central theme of the debate must return to technological neutrality, since a real alternative to the use of fossil fuels does not currently exist.
The realism sought by the Italian government lies first of all in the data. Suffice it to say that the population of our planet is expected to reach approximately 8.5 billion by 2030. With this mass of population, global GDP is also set to double in the next decade. These two elements alone – without taking into account the political, economic and international security scenario in which we live – will lead to a steady increase in energy use. If we think of the technological and digital escalation of recent years and the prospects of an increasingly connected world linked to the development of artificial intelligence, the energetic needs of individual states are destined to grow even further. The Italian proposal is, therefore, for an energy mix to serve a transition that is realistic and not ideological. It will be necessary to use all available technologies, from renewables to gas, passing through biofuels, hydrogen, CO2 capture and, in the future, nuclear fusion. The latter is a challenge, recalled PM Meloni, and Italy is ready and in the front line to make its contribution.