What's at stake at the COP29 climate summit?

Leaders from almost two hundred nations are attending the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan amid warning that next year could be the hottest on record. The politicians are hoping to agree a financial plan to help lure both poorer nations and oil and gas rich states away from their reliance on fossil fuels. Mark Maslin is a professor of Earth System Science at University College. London, He'll be attending the COP climate summit, and he explains why wealthier nations - like the UK - were taking the lead at this year’s gathering…

Mark - If you have a look at the top 10 emitting countries, a lot of them are the industrial countries right from the beginning. The USA, all the European industrial nations, and the UK. And it's interesting, if you add in land use changes, you get other countries that are in that top 10, including Indonesia and Brazil because of the huge changes. So we are one of the top 10 historic emitters and therefore we had that legacy. And we've done incredibly well. Remember, we've gone from 2% of our electricity generation coming from renewables in the year 2000. We are now up to 50% of our electricity comes from renewables. So the UK's done really well cleaning up its act. But we have that historic legacy that we have to acknowledge and also help other countries to go on the same journey that we are going on.

Chris - It hasn't escaped the attention of many around the world that COP 20 is being hosted by Azerbaijan, which derives enormous amounts of its revenue from the oil and gas industry. And people have questioned their commitment. What's that looking like?

Mark - I think this is a misunderstanding of international negotiations. The reason why all 196 countries need to get together to talk about these issues is because how do we help a country like Azerbaijan whose 90% of its export money comes from oil and gas. So if we want this country to move away from fossil fuels, how do we help them build a different economy which is just as profitable that allows them to actually develop their economy and help their people out of poverty? We need to do this as an international community because if we just stop oil and gas from Azerbaijan, then it will plunge that country into abject poverty. So we have to think of this as a system-wide issue and not just blame countries because they have a natural resource. There is a huge global demand. Because remember 80% of the world's energy still is produced by fossil fuels. So they're still really important, but how do we actually help them transition?

Chris - They also have a record though in government terms of leaning on people who say do and criticise in the wrong sort of way.

Mark - So the issue we have is that we are dealing with an international community where governments vary hugely from full democracies to full dictatorship and therefore this is why something like the COP is really important because we need to actually take all of the countries of the world on this journey. And part of it is about negotiation. Part of it is by signposting. COP in Paris actually agreed in 2015 that we were going to limit CO2 emissions to two degrees warming or an aspirational target of 1.5 and that means going net zero. So this obsession with net zero comes from the COP meetings and therefore it has permeated every part of our culture and economy. But we need to then work out how we actually activate that. How do we actually move all of the countries, whether they are a totalitarian state or whether they're a full democracy? And that's why international negotiations are incredibly difficult, very tricky but absolutely essential.

Chris - But some countries don't even want to engage with them at all. I was just looking, the Argentinians have pulled out every single one of their delegates at COP.

Mark - So occasionally countries throw dollies from the pram and will step out. We had this during the first Trump administration. The US basically said, no, we're having nothing to do with the Paris agreement. We want to step out. And so countries do step in and out and what happens is you get other countries filling that void and taking on leadership roles and that's incredibly important. So what is fantastic about COP 29 is the UK has gone there. Keir has basically said, we are back. We are going to lead climate action and these are our new targets and we are here to help.

Chris - Returning to that point, I mean we can talk about America in just a minute because that's relevant too, isn't it? Based on what you just said about the previous administration, soon to be the next administration again. But Keir Starmer committing the UK to an 81% reduction in our emissions by, what, 2035 I think it is, isn't it? Given that countries like the UK are down at the 1% of total emissions level, is that really making a difference though in real terms? Because we are going to basically contribute less as a country in absolute terms, then China will increase its emissions by this year.

Mark - So it's about leadership. So if the sixth largest economy in the world, which is the UK, can change its whole economy and go fully renewable, it shows to the rest of the world that you can still be competitive. You can actually make a huge difference. And of course we can then export all that new technology and all that know-how to the rest of the world. You also mentioned China. So China has an aim that it's going to peak its emissions by 2030. Now if we look at the actual data, it looks like they will peak their emissions next year and then those emissions will start to drop. So that leadership role that, say, Europe and UK have taken is driving other countries. I think you also have to remember that the global economy is also shifting. And this is really powerful and interestingly enough, more powerful than American presidents, because you see the shift to renewable energy. The reason being is it's cheaper, it's more secure, and you are not beholden to the geopolitics of fossil fuels. And so around the world we're seeing this big shift. The only problem is as everybody would say, it's a fantastic huge shift, but it's not fast enough. And the ridiculous thing is even though it is almost an exponential growth in all renewable energy, we sort of still need it five times faster.