Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent in Baku

COP29 hosts Azerbaijan have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons, with allegations that they are using this meeting to make deals on developing their vast gas resources found in the Caspian Sea.

This little-known country, squeezed between Russia and Iran in the Caucasus region, is now one of Europe’s biggest suppliers of oil and gas.

But as well as contributing to the causes of global warming, Azerbaijan is suffering major impacts.

A study, external released by Christian Aid, shows that the country will endure the most economic harm from rising temperatures in Eastern Europe.

By 2050, the country’s GDP - which measures the size of the economy - could shrink by 8.5%.

As well as getting hotter, the report forecasts Azerbaijan will suffer more erratic rainfall and severe flooding - with huge impacts on agriculture, tourism and increased tension over water supplies.

The report points out that this year's COP hosts current plans for cutting carbon emissions are rated as “critically insufficient”.

So it will be interesting to see if Azerbaijan comes up with a new, stronger carbon plan here at COP, given the implications for the country.

Mark Poynting
Climate and environment researcher

This year’s talks come after a run of deadly extreme weather events around the world.

These range from a blistering heatwave in west Africa in March and April to the intense downpours that hit central Europe in September.

Both of these events – and many others - were made much worse by human-caused climate change, according to the World Weather Attribution group.

And until the planet stops warming, many extreme weather events are likely to get even stronger, and happen more often, climate scientists warn.

They say this is why it is so important for poorer nations to get the funds they need to help with preparations for more intense weather extremes.

As we’ve been discussing, this is the main focus of the COP29 talks over the next couple of weeks.

With the 12-day-long COP29 just getting underway, we've some pictures of delegates and visitors arriving for the summit in Baku:

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Climate activist Greta Thunberg says she will not be attending COP29 because the event is "greenwashing".

Host nation Azerbaijan "has no ambition to take climate action", she says.

Writing in today's Guardian newspaper, Thunberg argues that Azerbaijan is "planning to expand fossil fuel production" - with state petrochemicals company Socar’s oil and gas accounting for nearly 90% of the country’s exports.

This is "completely incompatible with the 1.5C limit and the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change," she says.

Thunberg also argues that the COP meetings have "allowed authoritarian regimes like Azerbaijan and the two previous hosts – the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – to continue violating human rights".

Describing Azerbaijan as a "repressive state", she mentions the "human rights violations committed by Azerbaijan’s Aliyev regime" against ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region.

Many attendees of this year's COP are "scared to criticise the Azerbaijan government," Thunberg adds.

Georgina Rannard
Climate reporter in Baku

Image source, Reuters

Oil and gas make up more than 90% of Azerbaijan’s exports - which doesn’t make Baku seem the best place for climate talks. It’s hot off the heels of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates hosting last year.

So why here?

The COP presidency rotates around five regions - this year it was Eastern Europe’s turn. Bulgaria originally wanted to be the hosts, but Russia blocked that move. So, Baku was chosen instead.

I thought it was just a rumour that the city “smells of oil” - but today as our team walked in under green and blue arches reading COP29 Baku, it felt like walking through a huge petrol station. The smell was almost overpowering, and I can still feel it now as I’m writing.

The country also has a bad record on human rights with severely limited freedom of speech and no right to protest, according to Human Rights Watch. , externalMany experts here say that Azerbaijan’s reliance on fossil fuels means it can’t get a strong deal on climate - but others say everyone needs to be at the table to solve climate change.

The United Arab Emirates was the first to submit an updated climate action plan (called Nationally Determined Contributions) to the UN last week, ahead of the deadline in February.

The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, and to keep them "well below" 2.0C above those recorded in pre-industrial times

Nearly 200 parties adopted the legally binding international treaty on climate change at COP21 - nine years ago.

Just last week, it was projected that 2024 would be the first year to breach the 1.5C global warming limit.

It's also expected to break the record again, for the hottest year on record.

Mark Poynting
Climate and environment researcher

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has just said that 2024 is on track to be the world’s warmest year on record.

The WMO says that the global average temperature between January and September has been around 1.54C above those of the late 19th Century.

Back in Paris in 2015, almost 200 countries pledged to try to limit long-term temperature rises to that level, hoping to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change.

But the UN says this 1.5C target has not yet been breached, because it refers to a longer term average.

Image source, Getty Images

It took Donald Trump more than three years to remove the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But three months later, on his first day in office, Biden reversed, external that decision in February 2021.

So will Trump do the same again?

On Friday, the New York Times reported that the president-elect's transition team has already prepared executive orders and proclamations on withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement again. It also reported on shrinking the size of some national monuments to allow more drilling and mining.

Trump is also expected to end the pause on permitting new liquefied natural gas exports to big markets in Asia and Europe and revoke a waiver that allows California and other states to have tighter pollution standards, according to the report.

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

Experts say Donald Trump's return to the White House are likely to have a hugely negative effect on climate change action in the short-term, but the longer term impact of his re-election as US president is less certain.

With world leaders meeting at COP29, the Trump victory will be seen as a huge roadblock to progress in both cutting emissions and raising cash for developing countries.

The US president-elect is a known climate sceptic who has called efforts to boost green energy a "scam".

But with renewable energy gaining a strong foothold in the US and popular support for wind and solar, Trump's efforts to ramp up oil and gas instead may be less effective.

While climate change did not play much of a role in this year's campaign, Trump's likely actions in office this time could be far more significant than in 2017 - when he announced the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the most important UN process to tackle climate change.

• You can read Matt McGrath’s full analysis of what Trump’s win means for climate action here.

Image source, Getty Images

Georgina Rannard
Climate reporter in Baku

Image source, Reuters

The UN climate envoy, Simon Stiell, has just addressed the COP. He shows a photograph of him standing next to his 85-year-old neighbour, a woman called Florence, on Carriacou island, Grenada.

She’s standing in the ruins of her home after hurricane Beryl pummelled the Caribbean in July this year.

He tries to bring this down the level of the individual, asking:

• “Do you want your grocery and energy bills to go up even more?
• Do you want your country to become economically uncompetitive?
• Do you really want even further global instability, costing precious life?”

Stiell says that if the answers to those questions are no, then progress at these talks is essential.

One important issue he mentions is something called Article 6 in the landmark Paris Agreement (the 2015 deal when countries agreed a roadmap for tackling climate change).

It’s complicated, but Article 6 is about how to get international carbon markets up and running - or how nations can trade on reducing emissions.

Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor in Baku

A senior COP29 official appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals.

A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

"We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," he says.

A former head of the UN body responsible for the climate talks has told the BBC that Soltanov's actions were "completely unacceptable" and a "betrayal" of the COP process.

The findings come a year after the BBC obtained leaked documents that revealed plans by the UAE to use its role as host of COP28 to strike oil and gas deals.

Read more about Soltanov's discussion of future fossil fuel deals here.

Georgina Rannard
Climate reporter in Baku

Image source, Reuters

Mukhtar Babayev has just been elected COP29 president - it’s a formality but it means he’s now responsible for securing an agreement in the next two weeks.

A former oil executive, he spent 26 years at Azerbaijan's state-owned oil and gas company Socar. Now he is the nation’s minister for ecology and natural resources.

“We are on the road to ruin,” Babayev tells the room, listing examples of climate impacts now around the world, saying “these are not future problems”.

“People are dying in the dark but they need more than compassion […] and paperwork,” he says.

He lays out the themes of these talks - getting more money for developing nations to pay for moving away from fossil fuels and adapting to the climate change that is already here.

The other theme is what is always called “raising ambition” in these talks - which basically means getting countries to promise to do even more to reduce their emissions.

Countries must soon submit their latest climate action plans, and some developing countries will want to see promises of more money to help them fulfil their goals.

Esme Stallard
Climate reporter in Baku

Although COP pledges may seem high level and far removed from the lives of ordinary people, they can trickle down to state and local level to have an impact on climate change and how we lead our lives.

Pledges at COP take many forms. There is the formal legal text which countries negotiate over the two weeks which builds on what was agreed in previous years.

Some of these texts, for example the Paris Agreement, are legally binding but there are no strong enforcement mechanisms like penalties.

However, these texts have been used in legal cases against governments which environmental groups and individuals believe are not doing enough to tackle climate change.

Because of this, the final text can take a long time to negotiate and be quite vague. For example, last year in Dubai at COP28 countries agreed to move away from fossil fuels but did not say how quickly.

One thing that countries agreed in the text from the 2015 COP was they would submit national plans every five years to achieve the treaty texts.

These plans are far more detailed and include goals on how to reduce greenhouse gases, such as phasing out the use of petrol and diesel cars.

As well as the treaty there are also announcements at the COPs where groups of countries agree to a voluntary goal, like in Dubai when countries agreed to triple renewable energy.

These types of pledges are very important for sending a signal to investors and the markets that government will make favourable policies about this and it is an area for an investment.

The bigger question environmental groups argue it isn't so much do pledges make a difference - but are they ambitious enough to tackle climate change?

Georgina Rannard
Climate reporter in Baku

Outgoing COP president Dr Sultan al-Jaber, who hosted the talks in Dubai last year, brings down the gavel and with that he opens the talks.

He asks everyone to “act, unite and deliver”, to applause from the hundreds of people who’ve managed to get a seat for opening. The queues outside snaked around the huge hall.

Just a reminder of what happened in the UAE last year at COP28 - an agreement by all nations there to "transition away from fossil fuels".

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

COP29 is the latest edition of the world's most important meeting on climate change, being held this year in Baku - the capital of Azerbaijan - from 11-22 November.

COP, which is led by the UN, stands for Conference of the Parties - meaning those those countries that have ratified a treaty called the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

The COP is the decision-making body of that agreement, which was signed back in 1992. Countries meet every year to negotiate the best approaches to tackling the root causes of climate change.

Read more about COP29.

Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth's average temperatures and weather conditions.

Between 2014 and 2023, the world was on average around 1.2C warmer than during the late 19th Century, the World Meteorological Organization says.

And 2024 is "virtually certain" to end up as the world's hottest year on record, according to the latest projections by the European climate service.

Image source, bbc

A global average temperature increase of 1.2C might not sound much. However, it has already had a huge effect on the environment, including:

• more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall
• rapid melting of glaciers and ice sheets, contributing to sea-level rise
• huge declines in Arctic sea-ice
• warmer oceans, which can fuel more intense storms and hurricanes and damage wildlife such as coral reefs

People's lives are also changing. For example, in 2022, parts of East Africa suffered their worst drought for 40 years, putting more than 20 million people at risk of severe hunger.

In the same year, intense European heatwaves led to an abnormal increase in deaths across the continent.

As the world turns to climate talks in Baku, projections by the European climate service suggest it is now “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the warmest year on record.

This year has been punctuated by intense heatwaves and deadly storms.

The latest data from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service project 2024 to likely end up at least 1.55C hotter than pre-industrial times. This would make it the first entire calendar year to breach 1.5C of warming, something countries agreed to try to avoid in the 2015 Paris agreement.

As a reminder, "pre-industrial" refers to the benchmark period of 1850-1900, which roughly equates to the time before humans started significantly heating up the planet by burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

The latest projection means that 2024 could surpass the current record of 1.48C, which was set only last year.

Georgina Rannard
Climate reporter in Baku

Image source, EPA

Everywhere in the capital city, there are signs of the country’s pride of its history. From the iconic flame towers to a clock tower designed like part of an oil rig.

When I arrived in Baku I did a free walking tour, and the guide cheerfully showed us black-and-white photographs from oil boom years - huge plumes of oil and flames spurting up. In the 1890s it turned the city from a walled-town into rich city almost overnight, paying for majestic buildings that eventually spilled out miles into the desert.

On the waterfront, overlooking the gas-rich Caspian sea, I saw a statue of Azerbaijan’s celebrated opera singer Muslim Magomayev. His song “Oilmen of the Caspian Sea” rings out on demand, lulling passers-by out for a stroll.

But this isn’t just history - Azerbaijan wants to expand natural gas production by up to a third in the next decade. So it’s no wonder there is scepticism about the country’s commitment to tackling climate change by cutting fossil fuels.

Can its presidency get a deal with solutions for our warming planet? We’ll be following every twist and turn but it looks like a bumpy ride ahead.