I live in a divided mental state over the yearly climate negotiations. The Conferences of the Parties (COP) remain important platforms for global collective action, but to say they are not fraying – both from within and due to bigger external events – would be an understatement. Their future appears rather bleak.

Across the Atlantic, at the seat of global power, the anti-climate Rambo himself is soon to take office, and this only adds to the bleak outlook.

With wealthy countries not fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement’s principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, climate finance – essentially a form of reparation for a stolen carbon budget – remains in limbo. This is why the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance – in terms of which developed countries pledged to contribute at least $300-billion for climate adaptation – was a significant issue at Baku.

Those who had an obligation to commit more funds called COP29 a success and those who did not see the NCQG reach trillions of dollars saw it as a failure. If you take the time cost of money, this deal is paltry.

At the start of COP29, Article 6 provisions, which allow for trade in carbon credits, were agreed on, something Baku saw as a win. The idea behind this early announcement was to position carbon markets as a backup in case the NCQG failed in its full ambition.

Inside the intimate, closed world of climate negotiations, where a throng of climate experts, activists, lobbyists and businesspeople race from one pavilion to another in the Blue and Green Zones, there are a myriad of panel discussions – enough to raise your heart rate to dangerous levels.

Each panel discussion is a parade of the usual tropes, noisy with the energetic bazaar of sales pitches – from policy wonks and consultants to industry players. This is a symptom of how loud talk has replaced real action.

The recent G20 meeting, hosted by Brazil, included a rather meek closing statement that simply wished the COP a successful finance outcome.

The G20 was unable to muster a more ambitious signal, as Argentina’s President Javier Milei downplayed climate action and attacked the idea of taxing billionaires. Milei was effectively a proxy for other global multilateral obstructors.

Milei also withdrew his climate team from the COP, sending a clear signal that climate change was not a priority for Argentina.

Climate negotiations take place in a global context where multilateralism hangs by a thread as more and more mini lateral processes emerge. From the QUAD and the FOCAC to BRICS and the G20, the landscape is becoming ever more complex as a new world order struggles to find its way out of the current morass of multipolarity.

This brings to the fore the poignant point that climate negotiations cannot escape the broader currents of geopolitical intrigue. Nothing is for free or without some sort of demand for reciprocal loyalty to one great power or another. It is the prism through which all relations bend these days.

When the final agreement was scripted by the COP president, he did the ignominious thing: thumping the gavel just as an Indian lead negotiator stood to object to the paltry sum that had been put on the table and to register India’s disquiet about what transpired at COP29. That incident will reverberate throughout eternity.

If you must know, those banging pots from outside the plenary halls – the think-tanks, activists and policy experts talking about things they have no influence or control over – can be considered useful noise, creating the impression that climate democracy was alive at COP29 and that voices were being heard. Yet, the trillions required were not reached.

Without a reasonable finance solution to deliver climate outcomes, Nationally Determined Contributions are going to struggle to deliver bottom-up approaches. We are already beyond the 2 ºC threshold.

During the COP29 rest day, I took a short tour of the old town and was shown around the site where the first oil well was drilled, at the edge of the Caspian Sea, at Bibi-Heybat.

Oil and gas are the fuel that powers the Azerbaijani economy. During the build-up to COP29, more and more oil and gas deals were being signed in Baku. This highlights the gap between climate goals and the surge in lucrative rents from oil and gas.

The same dynamic unfolded in Seoul, where a global deal to rid the world of plastics collapsed. Oil- and gas-producing countries and corporations view plastics as a way to sustain their business. Why kill the golden goose?

It is not surprising that rich oil and gas countries are hosting a series of COPs. The assumption is that, by hosting these events, the countries will be more inclined to take meaningful action on climate. That’s like asking a fox to guard a henhouse.

The whole global economic system is built on contradictions, and this is not limited to Baku; it extends to those posturing with their green deals on the North Atlantic and across the European landmass, west of Baku.

COPs are rife with chicanery. We need to understand that this is what they have become. Despite being the largest gatherings of climate policy wonks and lobbyists, who shamelessly churn out more and more energetic puffery, their eagerness to burn more fossil fuels to get to the next big event remains undiminished – undeterred by the uneasy realities of the new world.

In the meantime, we must continue to preserve the remaining few and far-between vestiges of multilateralism – not necessarily for the sake of climate alone, but to hold together the bonds of humanity in this increasingly fragmented world. We must save humanity from the worst of itself, as much as we must save the world from climate change.