Global climate change talks start under shadow of Trump’s views
Global climate talks started today in Baku, Azerbaijan, a major oil and gas producing country that borders Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea.
The annual meeting is a chance for world leaders, as well as scientists, activists and corporate executives, to hash out plans to rein in global warming, and to prepare communities for threats they already face from rising temperatures. But Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in the United States, the biggest historical contributor of greenhouse gas pollution heating the planet, raises questions about whether the country will continue working on global climate initiatives.
At the end of last year’s conference in Dubai, negotiators struck a breakthrough agreement for countries to transition away from fossil fuels, the chief source of heat-trapping pollution. But Trump has promised to boost U.S. fossil-fuel production.
And even before Trump reclaimed the White House, the United Nations warned that efforts to curb climate pollution are far off track. Global emissions rose to a new record in 2023, and scientists in the European Union say it’s “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the hottest year on record.
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