Azerbaijan Climate researcher Latif: UN climate summit has achieved nothing

Climate researcher Mojib Latif casts doubt on the purpose of the annual UN climate conferences. "We have 28 conferences behind us and emissions have exploded. The COP is a spectacle that has done nothing for the climate so far," he told the "Rheinische Post" newspaper in Düsseldorf. The only good thing is that the developing countries are being heard and technology fairs are being held.

The senior professor at the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel also called it absurd when climate conferences are held in countries that live off oil or gas - such as recently in the United Arab Emirates or now in Azerbaijan. "These countries are blocking the phase-out of fossil fuels, even though it is urgently needed."

In his view, it would be better than the annual mammoth conferences if the major emitters of climate-damaging greenhouse gases were to sit down and act on a smaller scale. "China and the USA together cause almost half of global emissions, the G20 countries together 80 percent."

In the 30 years since the first climate conferences, greenhouse gas emissions have indeed continued to rise. However, defenders of the UN summits argue that without international agreements on climate protection, the increase would probably have skyrocketed even further. Between 1990 and 2022, for example, emissions in the 27 EU member states fell by around 31%, and even more in Germany.

SDA