BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — Just by turning up at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Keir Starmer is sending a signal.
The U.K. prime minister wants to show that — whatever else is going on in the world — his new government cares about the global fight against climate change.
That fight, Starmer said last year, is “probably the single biggest issue” facing the world.
But is anyone listening?
The leaders of the U.S, China, France, Germany, Japan and India have all skipped this week’s get-together in Azerbaijan.
As a result, Starmer suddenly finds himself top billing. And that’s right where the U.K.’s Labour government wants to be; Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who will lead negotiations at COP, has recently vowed to fill a “vacuum in leadership” on climate change.
The world has changed substantially in the last week with the reelection in the U.S. of Donald Trump — a man who last week called climate change a “hoax” and who is expected to push climate action further and further down the international agenda.
Two priorities
With fellow climate-conscious European leaders including Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Olaf Scholz facing political instability at home, and a very different president in the White House, Starmer may find any role as a global climate leader a lonely one.
“I’m not going to comment on his views,” the prime minister told reporters aboard his plane to Baku, when reminded of Trump’s words.
“I am very clear in mine,” he continued, “which is that the climate challenge is something that we have got to rise to — and that’s why I’ve repeatedly said we’ve got to show leadership.”
Starmer’s pitch to Trump and other opponents of climate action is simple. If global warming is left to rip, it will devastate two things Trump’s voters – and disenchanted populations across the West including the U.K. — care about: economic growth and security, including border security.
These, Starmer said en route to Baku, are “the two key priorities for me in all of the engagements with our partners.”
And he eyed the possibility that a Trumpist U.S. withdrawal from the green growth agenda might even help the U.K. get ahead.
“There’s a race on now to be the global leader on this,” he said. “I want us to be in the race and I want us to win the race.”
New target incoming
With Trump returning to the White House, senior U.K. figures from previous COP summits are ratcheting the pressure on Starmer to step up and provide leadership on the global climate agenda.
“If the new Trump administration decides to walk away from the Paris Agreement for a second time and retreats from climate leadership, I hope other nations will step forward to try to fill some of the breach, including the new U.K. government,” said Alok Sharma, who served as president of COP26 when the U.K. played host three years ago.
On Tuesday, Starmer is expected to unveil an ambitious new emissions cutting target — an attempt to raise the bar for other countries setting their 2035 goals ahead of the next COP, due next year in Brazil.
The deadline for those targets is February. But, alongside the Brazilians, the U.K. has got in early, in the hope other countries will then raise their own ambitions.
Last month the U.K. government’s official advisers, the Climate Change Committee, recommended an ambitious target of an 81 percent emissions cut on 1990 levels. All eyes will be on Starmer to see if he sticks to that number.
The remainder of the Azerbaijan summit will focus on a thornier issue for wealthy nations such as the U.K.
Money, money, money
The main aim of the conference is to agree on a new goal for climate finance — the money which flows from developed countries to poorer nations to help them transition away from fossil fuels. Developing countries have called for publicly-funded contributions from wealthy governments to reach $1 trillion annually.
Even before Trump’s victory, that sort of figure clashed with straitened finances and demands on Starmer to fix the public sector at home.
Flying into the summit, he confirmed that the U.K. would honor a longstanding commitment to spend £11.6 billion on climate finance from 2021/22 to 2025/26 — a pledge that had been wobbling.
But he went no further when asked if he backed the $1 trillion aspiration.
“I’m not making any commitment for the U.K. at this COP at all on that front,” Starmer said, adding that it was now “high time” for the private sector “to start paying their fair share.”
It is not a surprising message in Baku, where all rich countries are dragging their feet over funding commitments. But it will do little to reassure campaigners hoping for that promised U.K. leadership.
“The U.K.’s legacy as a major polluter has placed a burden squarely on the shoulders of those that have contributed the least to the climate crisis,” said Taahra Ghazi, co-chief executive of the ActionAid UK charity. “It’s time to pay the price.”
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