Transcript of COP29: World leaders meet in Azerbaijan as UN climate talks begin | BBC News

The latest COP Climate Conference is just getting underway in Bakhu in Azerbaijan. The annual meeting brings countries together to try and find ways to reduce the threat of global warming. This year, it comes as scientists say 2024 is set to be the hottest on record. Well, let's show you the latest pictures from Bakhu, where more than 100 world leaders and heads of states are expected to converge over the coming weeks. Our Climate Editor, Justin Rowland, sent us this report from there.

Cop 29 is definitely the most important event of this year. This climate conference is the most significant international meeting Azerbaijan has ever hosted, and the country has not skimped on the operations. But some things you can't control. My plan will terminate the Green New deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably. It's for the state of thought, Like when the biggest economy in the world elects a climate skeptic. Last night, workers were putting the finishing touches to the conference venue. Mr. Trump has said he'll pull out of the key part of the UN climate talks. The US has sent a delegation here, but any promises they make are likely to be overturned when Trump takes office in January. And top of the agenda this year is the trickiest topic of all. They are calling this the money cop because the focus is on finance. Negotiators want to agree a new goal for how much money richer countries should be paying to poorer countries to move away from fossil fuels and also adapt their countries to climate change. At the moment, It's $100 billion a year. The hope is it will be hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Developing countries would like it to be more than a trillion dollars. I can give you some of the statistics- Activists involved in the talks say they don't think the summit will be derailed.

It takes collective response. If we're going to be able to hold warming to below 1.5, it will take the whole world to come together. The biggest geopolitical challenge the world faces is climate change. If we don't tackle it, we don't have a planet.

Raising a trillion dollars a year was always going to be a tall order. But with the US set to pull out of the game, it will be even harder. And that could have an impact on climate action for years to come. Because the less money raised, the less likely countries are to dial up their carbon-cutting ambitions. Justin Rollat, BBC News, Baku.

Well, to get more on that, I'm joined now by Pierre Jean-Claude, the EU Climate Pact Ambassador. Welcome to BBC News. What hopes do you have for this year's COP summit?

Good morning, Virginie. The main hopes that we have is to have meaningful solutions as much as we can to pursue the goals that were enacted in COP28 and beforehand, mainly on... We have a lot regarding adaptation, transparency, and also regarding the financial mechanisms to help all countries fight climate change, which is a global problem, and global nature means global solutions.

There are some concern this year about the future of the US when it comes to climate conversations, given that Donald Trump is President-elect, and he's made statements that some might say, veer on climate skeptic.

There's one thing that I think is very paramount to understand as we're here is that I think that given the election of President Trump, we are going to face a bit of all throughout the world, the rise of regional blocks. We can see that the European Union is looking to become a more climate-engaged actor, but by itself and not following necessarily the lead of the US. I think that it's going to be the same for other regional blocks all around the world, whether you take MENA, South America, or Asia. I think that this is going to be a crucial thing. You can see through the rise of different regional groups at COP, as I do, that regional groups are very important at COP, and that the negotiations are mainly done through these instead of back alley negotiations. I do think that this is paramount here. We are going to have something... Cops, we don't need them polarized. The thing is that the very important goal, the essence of COPs, is negotiations, dialog, and structured thoughts and exchanges. In this case, it's the most important thing. We want to have meaningful outcomes and to have this.

What we need is to have dialog all throughout.

You talk about dialog. One of the challenges in these summits is ensuring that developing nations who are at the front lines of climate change not only have a voice at these meetings, but also are given financial support to actually be climate-proof, but also for loss and damage. That's sometimes a challenge because I've spoken to people in some of these South Asian countries, for example, who don't believe that they're getting enough support.

Definitely. The thing is that I do not think they are. There is a really critical need for all countries to actually participate in that. The thing is that the richest countries, they have It's our responsibility to actively participate in helping developing countries with the loss and damages funds. I think that on this regard, it's very important that we actually go forward on this and that we have ambitious measures at this COP. We saw that at COP16 for biodiversity in Colombia, it has not been the success that everyone thought it would be. In this case, I think that Baku is the very opportunity to pathway forward to Bellême and COP30 in Brazil, and to make sure that everything is set out for meaningful measures and not just for the show.

Okay, well, we'll find out in the course of the coming day. Thank you very much, Pierre Jean-Claes, EU Climate Pact ambassador. Let's show you the scene live at the summit in Barca. As you can see there, people are starting to filter into the room there because we are expecting shortly to hear from the COP 29 President, Moukta Babayev, who's also the Finance Minister of Azerbaijan. Delegates are filing into the room there. We will bring you some of that address when it happens. Just a reminder as well, there's plenty more on that story on the BBC news website.