Nobody wants to inherit a dead planet. This sentiment echoed through the halls of Azerbaijan’s Baku Stadium as the first week of the 2024 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP29) came to a close. Intended as a yearly conference to promote solutions to the climate crisis, COP once again ended the people of oppressed countries carrying a sense of grave disappointment. 

At the stadium, youth groups organized an action inside the venue carrying a banner saying “No More Wars, No More Debt, No More Fossil Fuels and No More False Solutions!”

When negotiations ran overtime during the second week, the youth gathered outside the plenary halls and had sleepovers to keep a watchful eye on the negotiators, demanding the Global North countries shoulder climate finance.

For a lot of young people, COP offers a platform to speak about our future. It’s a chance to share experiences and campaign together with others while putting pressure on leaders who can’t seem to get out of their board rooms.

This year failed to reach any meaningful decision towards genuine climate justice. Instead it has only shown the world how increasingly hollow the COP process is.

The entire conference came to a climax on Nov. 24. Leaders agreed on a $300 billion annual package for climate change initiatives in developing countries until 2035. Upon the announcement of the deal, delegates jeered and lamented the woefully insufficient sum.

Timelines for financial targets are expressed in years our communities do not have to spare. Funds for climate adaptation and loss and damage remain missing, while billions are funnelled yearly into war and militarism.

Why are those in power, in the richest countries on earth, so intent on funding bombs, genocide and plunder while shortchanging those of us who live in chronic vulnerability?

Once again, imperialist countries have settled for the weakest kinds of language around fossil fuel phase out. The agreement claims to source funding “from a wide variety of sources,” yet says nothing about the obligation of the Global North for reparations.

The outcome of COP29 has added nothing new towards an immediate, significant, and just reduction of fossil fuel use led by the Global North.

The facts speak for themselves: carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise almost every year since the beginning of the COP process.

Fossil fuel lobbyists dominate discussions within the COP, with at least 1,773 present this year in Azerbaijan. Fossil fuel companies have continued to receive billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Once again, imperialist countries have excluded the peoples of the world from the decision making at COP. The human rights language has also been steadily diluted or even erased from the COP29 outcome texts. The crises faced by small farmers, fisherfolk, workers, and Indigenous peoples are neglected, despite  bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.

It has become strikingly clear that the UN process has done very little to enable the world’s largest polluters to maintain and consolidate the imperialist world order. Any positives so far have been spare change, when it has been clear for the longest time that imperialist countries must foot the bill.

But as movements and youth, inheritors of this planet, we take the positives: lessons to build our grassroots movements globally pushing for a change in the system, beyond the dialogue.

Now than ever, we should challenge the current system, one that allows a climate denier to become the most powerful man in the planet, the same system that facilitates a year’s worth of genocide.

We need to invest in building a safer and fairer world in the long-term, rather than in fueling war and militarism, which are helping to drive climate and environmental harm. It is time to move the money from militarisation to genuine climate action. It is time to break the ties with military and fossil power, for the world’s wealthiest to reckon with colonialism and make progress on reparations for loss and damage.

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