Sawt Falasteen - Lame-duck US climate team vows to be 'effective' at COP29

President Joe Biden's lame-duck climate envoy, John Podesta, scurried back and forth to meetings and events across the cavernous halls of the COP29 conference in Baku.

Among the slew of pavilions put up by countries to host panel discussions, it was business as usual at the US site, where it is hosting chats throughout the two-week gathering.

The United States is also in the thick of complex negotiations to reach a deal on dramatically increasing financing to help poorer countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner energy.

But the return of climate-sceptic Trump, who has vowed to pull the US out of the Paris agreement again, remained a hot topic of conversation.

"There's no doubt that the lack of federal action on climate change is a big problem, and it's going to hobble US climate action," said Rachel Cleetus, a policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"But here at COP29 the Biden administration is still a government, and we expect them here to show leadership, take responsibility and push for ambitious outcomes at this COP in the negotiations in the next two weeks," she said.

- 'Effective participant' -

Podesta, who only took the job earlier this year, kicked off his visit Monday by seeking to reassure countries that work to contain climate change would continue in the US, even if Trump puts the issue on the "back burner".

On Tuesday, he co-headlined a summit on methane alongside his Chinese counterpart and the COP29 president during which he announced that oil and gas companies would be charged a fee for methane emissions in the US.

For his part, Ali Zaidi, Biden's climate adviser, said Tuesday that he has been pointing out "what we witnessed between 2017 and 2021" -- Trump's first term.

Trump was unable to roll back former president Barack Obama's solar and wind tax credits, while multilateral development banks continued to ramp up their capacity on climate finance, he said.

He added that developed countries were still able to meet a target of providing $100 billion in annual climate aid to poorer countries in 2022, a year after Trump left office. (That was two years later than promised, however).

"My big picture view on climate finance is (that) we've seen not just the US, but other countries zig and zag over the course of... COPS," Zaidi said.

"There's been a benefit in setting ambitious targets far out."

Ramping up climate finance is at the heart of the negotiations in Baku, with some nations pushing for the aid to be increased tenfold to $1 trillion per year.

"I think we will be an effective participant in a conversation that should conclude successfully over the course of the next two weeks," Zaidi said.

- 'Don't hide behind US election' -

A veteran negotiator from an African country told AFP that it appears that US negotiators might be making modest demands in the hope that the next administration would not object to the outcome of COP29.

Cleetus said other countries should put pressure on the US during the talks.

"Countries should not hide behind the US election outcome not to do the right thing, because everybody knows what's needed right now to secure our climate goals," she said.

Germany's climate negotiator, Jennifer Morgan, said she saw "strong determination" from countries to work together despite the US election's outcome.

"The mood here is a very determined mood to move forward in implementing and accelerating the energy transformation that we decided last year (at COP28 in Dubai) and in getting an ambitious and fair climate finance outcome," she told AFP.

E.Qaddoumi--SF-PST