COP29 meeting fizzles out as hydrocarbon heavyweights stand aside

Despite the daily evidence of environmental damage from soaring global carbon emissions, the latest COP29 gathering proved to be a major disappointment. Some commentators even questioned whether the Conference of the Parties has now entirely lost its way.

Countries affected by the onset of global warming – rising sea levels, loss of land, fires, and floods – had been seeking $1.3 trillion in funds to prepare for the coming decades to ward off fatal damage to their economies and, in some cases, to prevent their extinction. Many hours after the intended closure of the two-week event in  the Azerbaijan capital, weary representatives were still seeking an acceptable compromise resolution. The final sum agreed for climate finance was $300 billion.

What disappointed many observers was the fact that the latest COP meeting appeared to have lost almost all of the momentum of previous gatherings. At the COP15 meeting a decade-and-a-half ago in 2009, attendees left Copenhagen with a real sense that energy producers, processors and consumers, would embrace change and adopt carbon reducing technologies. Fifteen years on, the momentum has stalled to snail’s pace.

Major producers are boosting output with minimal attention to cutting emissions. Some are wooing energy-hungry developing countries – not the ones, by the way, that may disappear under the sea within the next few decades. The oil producers are offering appealing deals to nations which need energy for industrial development as they see traditional markets turning to wind, sun, and e-fuels for the future.

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The outcome of COP29 is important for shipping for many reasons. The climate sceptic President-elect of the US, Donald Trump, intends to pump more American oil come what may. This could reduce imports, to some extent, on long-haul import trades.  

But this could be offset by producers such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait which both plan to raise output in the months ahead, generating more long-haul trade to Europe and the Far East. They will also be targeting markets in shorter-haul trades to Africa and India.

Global energy markets and their shipping supply chains will enter 2025 with many imponderables.