As COP29 formally gets under way in Baku today, there is a deluge of media coverage. Several outlets report on which countries are – and are not – sending senior leaders to the talks. Agence France-Presse reports that an “Afghan delegation will attend…marking a first since the Taliban government came to power”, adding: “It was not immediately clear in what capacity the delegation would participate at COP29, but sources indicated it would have observer status.” Reuters and the Associated Press also cover the story.

Politico says that, despite last week’s election victory for climate-sceptic Donald Trump, “a top Democrat [Senator Sheldon Whitehouse] will be there to ‘reassure the international community that large swathes of the US remain committed to steering the planet away from climate catastrophe’”. The New York Times says: “The leaders of the European Commission, Germany, France, Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Japan, Australia and Papua New Guinea, along with President Biden, are skipping the event. So are major financiers, including the heads of Bank of America, BlackRock, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank. Representatives of the Biden administration in Baku are lame ducks now, with little leverage over any deal.”

Meanwhile, Politico says that EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters on Friday that the EU will “continue fruitful engagement with a range of congressmen, senators and also the next US administration”. Bloomberg reports that the “Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof [has] cancelled his trip to [COP29] after attacks against Israeli football fans in the Netherlands”. The Globe and Mail lists “Canada’s priorities at COP29”. The Press Trust of India says that India will “focus on climate finance, protecting vulnerable communities”, as the Hindu says India will “emphasise Paris Agreement red lines on climate finance”.

Separately, Reuters reports that Brazil has announced a new climate change pledge ahead of COP29: “The new target aims to reduce emissions by 59% to 67% by 2035, as compared to 2005. Brazil had previously set a target of a 53% reduction by 2030.” The Washington Post is running a live-blog for the first day of COP29.

Many outlets have previews of the talks in Baku. Predictably, finance is a key theme – as explained in detail by Carbon Brief last week. The Financial Times says: “Ministers and negotiators are gearing up for the toughest climate talks in almost a decade as representatives from nearly 200 countries meet in Baku this week, charged with agreeing a new finance target for tackling climate change…But huge divisions have emerged between countries in preliminary talks over the goal, with clashes over how much it should be, how it should be structured, and who should pay.” Le Monde agrees: “The challenge at this year’s COP will be to reach an agreement on financing to keep climate negotiations on track.” The Guardian says the “odour of oil and return of Trump hang heavy over COP29”. Similarly, the Times says: “In the city built on oil, [the] climate summit is overshadowed by Trump.”

Meanwhile, Reuters has an explainer headlined: “Who are the key voices at the COP29 climate summit in Baku?” The Guardian has published a “Who’s who at COP29”, as well as an “COP29 jargon buster” on “some of the phrases that are likely to crop up over the coming days in Baku”.

Several outlets take a close look at the hosts. The Associated Press says COP29 is “shining a spotlight on the petrostate” Azerbaijan. The New York Times tries to answer the question: “Why is a petrostate holding this year’s climate talks?” The Financial Times covers news analysis showing that “Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company is planning to increase new production of fossil fuels at the same time as Baku pushes other countries for climate”. Sky News says: “Who thinks oil state Azerbaijan is ‘perfectly suited’ to hosting a climate summit? Azerbaijan does.”

In other preview articles, the Guardian examines: “What would a good outcome at COP29 look like?” BBC News asks: “Will rich nations promise more money for climate change?” The New York Times lists “here’s what to know about [COP29]”. The Washington Post says that there is “a sense among scientists and policy professionals that the world has squandered a crucial year and [are] raising questions about how effectively the annual UN climate conference can address [the fact that]…some countries are “scaling up exports and launching new fossil fuel projects that could last for decades”. The Observer runs its own preview under the headline:  “Global boiling, mass flooding and Trump: 10 big talking points for COP29”. And a Sky News video report asks: “Trump and COP29: What will happen to the climate agreements?”

The UK must ramp up its efforts on renewable energy to foster national security in an increasingly uncertain world, the UK energy secretary Ed Miliband has warned in an interview with the Observer before he heads out to Baku. The newspaper adds: “He pledged that the UK would lead efforts at COP29 to secure the global agreement needed to stave off the worst impacts of climate breakdown, in talks that have been thrown into turmoil by the re-election of Donald Trump.” Miliband is reported as saying: “The only way to keep the British people secure today is by making Britain a clean-energy superpower, and the only way we protect future generations is by working with other countries to deliver climate action.” The Times says that UK prime minister Keir Starmer “will insist this week that it is in Britain’s strategic self-interest to push ahead with rapidly decarbonising the economy even if Donald Trump’s election stalls co-ordinated action to tackle climate change”. The Daily Telegraph tells its readers that the “UK is facing calls to pay into a $1tn fund to help developing countries tackle climate change at this year’s COP29 summit”. It adds: “A poll published by Oxfam on Monday found that four in five Brits support increasing taxes on luxury transport such as private jets and superyachts to raise funds to tackle climate change.” The i newspaper says that “climate charities say constraints on the UK’s aid budget means the government lacks ‘credibility’ on the main issue being discussed at the conference”.

In other UK news, the Observer reports that a “Conservative former cabinet ­minister who took donations from the billionaire boss of the JCB digger dynasty – including a £7,000 trip on his VIP private helicopter – oversaw decisions to award his family’s business empire millions in taxpayer-funded green energy grants”. It adds: “Claire Coutinho also posed for ­pictures promoting Lord Bamford’s personal £100m hydrogen engine project and accepted a £7,500 donation from JCB to her local election campaign while she was the energy secretary in Rishi Sunak’s government…JCB and the Conservative party declined to comment.” And the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph warns that “Britain’s wind generation is set to plummet to virtually zero this week as Ed Miliband presses ahead with plans to increase the nation’s reliance on renewable energy”, plus it has a report on a “solar [farm] shock wave” with “tenant farmers warn[ing] they face being cleared out as landowners sell up to net-zero developers”.

Away from COP29, there is widespread and continuing coverage of what the incoming Trump administration in the US could mean for climate action. The Financial Times says: “Donald Trump’s US election victory has dealt a blow to the renewable energy industry, prompting at least half a dozen developers to put projects on hold and investors to dump shares.” The New York Times reports: “As [Trump’s] transition team plans his energy and environment agenda, it is relying on two seasoned former cabinet leaders and fossil fuel lobbyists to dramatically reshape the agencies charged with protecting the nation’s air, water, climate and public lands, according to six people familiar with the matter.” Another New York Times article says: “Biden administration aides are racing to award hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and finalise environmental regulations in an effort to lock in President Biden’s climate agenda before [Trump] enters the White House, said John Podesta, the president’s senior adviser on clean energy.” Inside Climate News says that “climate advocacy groups say they’re ready for Trump 2.0”, adding: “Disheartened, worried, even scared, activists and strategists are nevertheless better prepared this time around and bracing for a long fight.”

The Hill examines “who will lead energy, environment agencies under Trump”. The Associated Press say: “Numerous experts worry that a second Trump term will be more damaging, with the US withdrawing even further from climate efforts in a way that could cripple future presidents’ efforts. With Trump, who has dismissed climate change, in charge of the world’s leading economy, those experts fear other countries – especially top polluting nation China – could use it as an excuse to ease off their own efforts to curb carbon emissions.” However, Time magazine says: “[Trump] does not represent a death knell to the decarbonisation agenda. Both economic factors and political realities globally mean that climate efforts will continue.” Bloomberg explains: “What Trump means for the future of heat pump and EV incentives.” And the Texas Tribune says: “Trump’s promise to unravel Biden’s climate policies could take years to fulfil.”

The German government is bracing for “tough” financial negotiations at COP29, as a “new financial framework for the post-2025 period must be established”, reports Stern. German chancellor Olaf Scholz will not attend the climate conference due to the “collapse” of the ruling coalition in Berlin, but four German cabinet members will still travel to the Azerbaijani capital, notes the outlet. Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has emphasised that the “climate crisis is the greatest security challenge of our time and it rages independently of elections”. Reflecting on Trump’s election victory and past anti-climate policies, Germany’s development minister Svenja Schulze is quoted saying: “Trump’s stance brought the world together…This unity will be achieved again.” Tagesspiegel also reports Baerbock highlighting the risks of global warming, such as storms, droughts, and floods: “Every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent means fewer crises, less suffering and less displacement”. In addition, T-Online notes that German climate action minister Robert Habeck has pointed to positive developments: namely, nearly a third of the world’s electricity now comes from renewable, “climate-friendly” sources, and “tripling renewable energy by 2030, as decided at COP28, is therefore possible”.

A new report, covered by the Guardian, suggests that extreme weather events cost the world $2tn over the past decade. The study, commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), finds a “gradual upward trend in the cost of extreme weather events between 2014 and 2023, with a spike in 2017 when an active hurricane season battered North America”, the Guardian explains. It continues: “The analysis of 4,000 climate-related extreme weather events, from flash floods that wash away homes in an instant to slow-burning droughts that ruin farms over years, found economic damages hit $451bn across the past two years alone. The figures reflect the full cost of extreme weather rather than the share scientists can attribute to climate breakdown.” In absolute terms, the US “suffered the greatest economic losses over the 10-year period, at $935bn, followed by China at $268bn and India at $112bn. Germany, Australia, France and Brazil all made the top 10”, the Guardian notes. On a per-capita basis, small islands such as Saint Martin and the Bahamas saw the greatest losses.

Elsewhere, the Guardian also covers a risk assessment by a network of central banks that shows the “physical shocks caused by climate breakdown will hit global economic growth by a third”. The analysis comes from the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of global banks that provide environmental and climate risk modelling in the financial sector, the newspaper explains: “Its update on climate risks using the new methodology foresees more than 30% losses due to the climate crisis by 2100 from a 3C rise in global average surface temperatures.” However, one expert not involved in the work warned that this method “systemically underestimat[ed] the risk” as it does not account for the impact of tipping points, sea temperature rises, migration and conflict, human health impacts or biodiversity loss, the outlet adds.

State news agency Xinhua reports that China has passed a new “energy law”, which covers areas including market systems, energy storage and technological innovation. The law is “designed to boost high-quality energy development, ensure national energy security, promote green and low-carbon transition and sustainable development [and] facilitate active yet prudent efforts to achieve…carbon neutrality goals”, it adds. Energy news outlet BJX News has published the full text of the law. State-run industry news outlet China Energy News says that China has “long lacked a foundational, overarching law in the energy sector”. International Energy Net reports the law “explicitly” supports “prioritising the development and use of renewable energy”, calls for “accelerating the construction of a system for dual-control of total carbon emissions and intensity” and develops “special provisions” for hydropower, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, tidal and hydrogen energy. Economic news outlet Jiemian says that a key difference between the final text of the law and its previous draft is the “new provisions for…energy demand response [mechanisms]”. 

Elsewhere, China Energy Net quotes Chinese environment minister Huang Runqiu during a visit to a solar industrial park, saying China must “build a carbon footprint system for solar products”. BJX News reports that China’s state council organised a report on desertification at a recent meeting of the national people’s congress standing committee, a leading legislative body. The “balance of green loans” has reached 36tn yuan (£3.9bn), a 25% year-on-year increase, current affairs website China.org.cn reports. Reuters reports that China’s passenger vehicle sales jumped 11% year-on-year in October, with “new energy vehicle” sales accounting for 53% of total sales.

Separately, Xinhua reports that executive vice-premier Ding Xuexiang will attend the COP29 “world leaders’ climate action summit” on 12-13 November. “State-level and other subnational officials” from the US and China will hold talks at the US-China subnational climate leaders dialogue at COP29, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports. A comment article by an unnamed “Xinhua commentator” in Xinhua writes “today’s world needs a generally stable China-US relationship”.

Finally, the Financial Times reports that “Chinese companies have pumped billions of dollars into Indonesia’s nickel industry” as Jakarta “[seeks] to develop its reserves” of the critical metal. China Energy News says that an expected ban by Indonesia on exports of coal, among several other items, will likely have a “limited” impact on China due to its “low dependency on coal imports and its recent high production levels”. And premier Li Qiang says China is “willing to deepen cooperation” with countries including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, in the “battery, automotive and solar industries”, state broadcaster CCTV says.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Valencia on Saturday in protest at the regional government’s handling of the recent flooding, which killed more than 200 people, reports the Guardian. The Valencian government has been criticised for not adequately preparing despite warnings five days before the floods that there could be an unprecedented rainstorm, the newspaper says. It continues: “Residents are protesting over the way the incident was handled, with regional leader Carlos Mazón under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue alerts to citizens’ mobile phones until hours after the flooding started.” The Times notes that, on the day the floods struck, Mazón “was absent from his office, lunching with a journalist until about 6pm local time…and arrived late to an emergency coordination meeting”. The newspaper also reports that the chief of Mazón’s civil protection team “did not know that emergency alerts could be sent over text”, adding: “The alerts were not sent to mobile phones in affected areas until after the floods had already struck, devastating towns around the capital.”

Writing in the Guardian, former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon says: “COP29 offers an opportunity for a new era of climate leadership – one that prioritises those on the frontlines. I encourage leaders to bring bold pledges to the table that reflect the scale of the challenge. This means simplifying processes, increasing access to financing for vulnerable nations and ensuring that adaptation is treated as an equal priority to mitigation and loss and damage.”

In Climate Home News, ActionAid’s Teresa Anderson writes: “Rich countries are…trying to shift the responsibility onto others by demanding that the new goal require developing countries to contribute finance. Not only does this re-open a key Paris Agreement decision (not a can of worms we should be opening), but assumptions that countries like China have equivalent responsibilities to the global north are simply not true. China’s cumulative historical per-capita emissions – and thus financial responsibilities for fixing the climate – are still far below those of developed countries.  Rather than finger-pointing, the global north needs to ask itself whether it genuinely wants to avert catastrophic climate change or not. In fact, the recent US election result means that giving our planet any chance of a safe future may require other developed countries to do more – not less – than their fair share. Because the escalating crisis means that someone is going to have to pay at the end of the day. The question at COP is whether the bill lands at the door of those that are causing the damage, or those that suffer it.”

In the Financial Times, associate editor and business columnist Pilita Clark asks: “Should a petrostate be allowed to host a COP? It may not be ideal, but nor is it guaranteed to fail.” Also in the Financial Times, chief economics commentator Martin Wolf writes: “Time is running out for the world to meet climate targets. Human inability to act in advance of distant perils is preventing necessary action now.”

An editorial in the Independent argues that “even before Donald Trump’s election victory, the outlook for this week’s global summit in Baku was bleak – but it presents an opportunity for the UK to take charge”. An editorial in the Guardian adopts a similar position: “The new president’s disruptive policies will challenge Sir Keir Starmer’s green goals. But with strong leadership he could enhance Britain’s global influence…With some European leaders backing off green leadership due to domestic challenges, and others likely to follow Mr Trump’s lead, Sir Keir has a chance to step up on the world stage. This is a popular position at home. It would also be welcomed by his embattled counterparts on the continent – and beyond.”

In contrast, the UK’s right-leaning, climate-sceptic media use the Trump victory to claim that the UK’s net-zero policies are now undermined. An editorial in the Sun says: “Ed Miliband’s mad dash to net-zero will whack taxpayers with a bill of hundreds of billions of pounds – at a time when the UK’s electricity is already among the costliest in the world. Trump is promising to ‘drill, drill, drill’, providing cheap energy from fracking – senselessly banned here.” An editorial in the Daily Telegraph argues: “On the eve of the summit, Miliband said the UK must ramp up efforts to expand renewable energy to foster national security in an increasingly uncertain world. The government is also expected to contribute to a £1tn fund for poorer countries, even though China and the Gulf states are exempt from paying. Yet given the indifference being shown by the leaders of other countries, the UK is climbing out onto a very dangerous limb. To secure the 2030 target for decarbonisation, the country will need to build twice as many pylons and cables in the next five years as we have built in the past 10. Fine words uttered at an overblown junket in an oil-rich nation 2,500 miles away will not make that any more feasible than it is now.” The Daily Telegraph’s deputy comment editor Annabel Denham writes: “Whatever your views on Donald Trump, a defeat for the green mob is a triumph for humanity.” Writing in the Daily Telegraph, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho says: “It’s time for Keir [Starmer] and Rachel [Reeves] to rein in their fanatical energy secretary, build more nuclear, back our domestic gas production and prioritise cheap power for 2030.” Financial Times deputy political editor Jim Pickard has an article headlined: “Decarbonisation, downsized: what became of Labour’s green prosperity plan? A Trump rollback of climate initiatives could help Europe attract funding but UK’s rebrand of goals highlights the mountain ahead.”

In other UK climate-sceptic commentary, the Sunday Times gives space to Dominic Lawson to say: “When the blackouts start, Labour will cop it. Britain’s hubristic plans for green energy may soon face a reckoning.” Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail writes: “Why I believe doom-monger Keir Starmer must be to blame for this damned dreary weather that’s draining the life out of Britain.” And the Spectator allows Matt Ridley, who has a long history of climate misinformation, to claim that dams were responsible for Valencia’s flooding.

Writing in the Financial Times (see more below), columnist Gillian Tett says: “Many people, myself included, used to assume that climate policy would be an opportunity for geopolitical collaboration. But, during the Biden administration, it has turned into an area of increasing geostrategic competition, instead. Most notably, the Chinese government has seized effective control over the processing of key minerals needed for green technology, and grabbed a lead in the production of items such as solar panels and electric vehicles. The Trump administration is threatening to take a tough line on this, slapping tariffs on Chinese imports. But China is so far ahead of the curve that America seems unlikely to catch up anytime soon. Washington now faces a nasty choice: it can either go green rapidly and cheaply by using Chinese tech, or it can forge its own path with more cost and delay. Either way, the political mood has become poisonous, and unlikely to deliver the emissions reduction that the world so badly needs.”

Jesse D Jenkins from Princeton University, writing for Heatmap, argues that “Trump is not the end of the climate fight”, adding that “the next battle begins today”. The Independent’s chief business commentator James Moore says: “The planet may be safer in Trump’s hands than you think…Thanks to the ‘X’ factor. The climate change-denying president’s victory cannot be portrayed as anything other than a threat to the environment – or does his friendship with Elon Musk suggest otherwise.” In contrast, an editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal says: “[Trump’s] re-election means the US may abandon its green mandates and could unleash fracking to slash domestic energy costs to the benefit of American manufacturers. A Europe addled by net-zero won’t be able to compete globally, especially if Trump follows through on his tariff threats. Germany will be the latest European country where voters must confront this new climate-policy reality. It won’t be the last.”

To mark the opening of COP29, the Financial Times has published a special report containing a wide range of articles which include headlines such as: “Women fight to have a voice in climate negotiations”; “​​EU braced for blows from all sides in march to meet net-zero goals”; “China’s cleantech boom fuels its confidence on the climate stage”; “Smaller nations fear delays in climate loss and damage funding”; and “India’s hunger for fossil fuels drags on its push towards net-zero.”

A new study finds that terrestrial carbon storage capacity has weakened during warm extremes over the past 40 years – mainly in tropical regions. The authors used a range of data sources including net ecosystem exchange datasets, climate datasets and Earth system models. They find that the weakening carbon sequestration capacity is mainly driven by a drop in “gross primary productivity” – the amount of CO2 that plants fix through photosynthesis in a given amount of time. “Our findings suggest that warm extremes threaten the global carbon sequestration function of terrestrial ecosystems,” the authors say.