Climate Diplomacy: Watch What Countries Do, Not What They Say

David M. Hart is a senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

How is global climate diplomacy shaping up at the conference in Baku?

Not surprisingly, the mood in Azerbaijan, at the annual summit to review progress toward the Paris goals (known as COP29), is said to be gloomy, and with good reason. President-elect Donald Trump’s wholesale denial of the science of climate change and his promises to maximize U.S. fossil fuel output are extreme, even compared with leaders of petrostates, including this year’s host nation. During his previous tenure, Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, and he has promised to do so again when he takes office in January.

Yet, the American election is far from the determining factor in the global fight against climate change. Neither is what happens at this COP or the others that will be held during Trump’s second term. What matters is how fast clean energy and climate technologies can get cheaper and better. About a third of the emissions reductions needed to get to net zero are expected to come from technologies that are not currently on the market. If they do come down in price, governments—even the United States— will be willing to take more aggressive actions to cut emissions. If they don’t, climate diplomacy will mostly be hot air that barely nudges emissions levels.

What are the prospects for the Paris Agreement under a Trump presidency?

The Paris Agreement, negotiated in 2015, has been signed by 195 nations. It sets a goal of limiting the rise in average global temperature to “well below” 2°C (3.6°F) compared to the preindustrial level. Each signatory offers a “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) plan, representing their “best effort” to cut greenhouse gas emissions in pursuit of that goal. The United States, for instance, promised under President Joe Biden to reduce its emissions by 50–52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030. NDCs are supposed to be revised upward of every five years. New ones are due in February 2025.

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President Trump will likely not submit one. There is no international mechanism to force him to do so. “Nationally determined” means what it says. If nations are not determined to cut emissions, the world will not hit its goal. The structure of the agreement is an acknowledgment of this reality. A previous agreement, hammered out in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, set “binding emission reduction targets” for thirty-seven rich countries. But the United States never ratified it, and the rest of the world, including China and India, the largest and third-largest emitters, respectively, were never a party to it. While the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol did comply [PDF] with its terms, its abundant flaws doomed the approach of binding commitments.

Has the Paris Agreement had an effect on global emissions thus far?

That is a very hard question to answer definitively. The official monitor of the agreement, the UN Environment Program, published its annual Emissions Gap Report ahead of the Baku summit. It chided the agreement’s signatories: “no more hot air…please!” The pledged NDCs don’t add up to the agreement’s goal, and many countries are not on track to fulfill their commitments. At this level of effort, average temperature rise is projected to hit 2.5 to 3°C by 2100.

Some good tidings can be found. While emissions continued to rise (except during the COVID-19 pandemic), global population and economic activity grew faster. The world has at least avoided the acceleration that might have been expected from a “business as usual” trajectory. Yet, the question remains: did climate diplomacy cause this slightly less cataclysmic outcome?

I believe the answer is: “maybe a little.” There could be a modest competition aspect to the jockeying among national leaders to look good as each COP approaches. Their public commitments to the world could inhibit shirking, although “hot air” is not unknown, as we have seen. But the “decoupling” of economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions largely predates the Paris Agreement.

More fundamentally, nations are not likely to promise, much less pursue, emissions cuts that would provoke discontent among their citizens. Rising fuel prices tend to do so. That’s a big reason why fossil fuel subsidies have proven so hard to eliminate, despite their obviously perverse effect on emissions and why carbon taxes are so rare. Perceived threats to deeply held identities also stoke concern. Protests by farmers linked to climate policies in many countries illustrate this challenge. And, if leaders overpromise, they could be replaced, and commitments scaled back, as the recent U.S. election suggests.

So, if climate diplomacy doesn’t much matter, what does?

What matters are solutions that will allow everyone in the world to meet their energy needs and pursue their aspirations without emissions and without raising prices (or at least not by much). Nearly ten years after the Paris Agreement, unabated combustion of fossil fuel still provides over 80 percent of global primary energy. Many of the technologies and systems that could replace fossil resources are too expensive, perform too poorly, or are simply unavailable.

To meet the agreement’s goals, the International Energy Agency (IEA) emphasizes the critical need for technological innovation in the power, transportation, and industrial sectors. Important progress has been made in key segments. Renewable energy dominates new global investment in the power sector. Electric vehicles account for 15 percent of new car sales and are rising.

But huge gaps remain. Clean, firm power—which is essential to complement the variable output of renewables—generated by technologies such as small modular nuclear reactors or advanced geothermal systems is not yet affordable or proven. Few solutions are viable right now for long-distance and heavy transportation. Low-carbon methods for making basic materials like concrete, steel, and aluminum are still in their infancy.

Overall, the IEA estimates that about a third of the needed emissions reductions rely on technologies that are under development. It calls on governments to stimulate demand for these, support research and development, initiate demonstration projects, and enhance international collaboration.

Will the Baku summit advance this agenda?

Again, maybe a little. Although one day of the two-week meeting has innovation as its theme, the summit’s primary focus will be “climate finance,” COP-speak for public and private investments and fund transfers from rich countries to poor countries. These could aid the climate innovation agenda on the margin by expanding the market for new solutions. But most of these dollars will flow into proven technologies and efforts to help the recipient nations cope with heat waves, floods, and other effects of climate change— all worthy of support but do not treat the underlying cause of the problem.

Other initiatives at COP29 focus more sharply on accelerating solutions. A Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge sets ambitious targets for technologies that will enable greater electrification in developing countries, which would help cut emissions from transportation and buildings as well as the power sector. A Green Digital Action Declaration calls on nations to leverage digital tools for climate action and to reduce the environmental impacts of digital technology, among other things. A Hydrogen Declaration and Green Corridors Pledge seek to expand trade in low-carbon commodities, such as iron, a major source of industrial emissions.

What happens after Baku?

Next year’s climate summit will be hosted by Brazil. The new NDCs will take center stage, and it’ll be telling to see how many of them feature climate innovation policies like those called for by the IEA.

China will almost certainly do so. It has carved out a substantial lead [PDF] in the current generation of technologies such as solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, and electric vehicles. It is seeking to build the next generation, too, and advance the frontier in other fields.

While the United States won’t offer an NDC, Chinese competition could prompt some constructive responses from the new Trump administration. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), whom the president-elect has nominated for Secretary of State, has advanced robust policies [PDF] to meet this competition across a number of industries, including energy and transportation. Congressional Republicans provided substantial support for energy research, development, and demonstration funding in recent budget cycles as well as for tax incentives to stimulate demand for some clean technologies.

This sort of U.S. response to Chinese competition could help unlock climate diplomacy next year. While the pace of clean technology deployment within the United States could be slowed by rollbacks of many Biden-era policies, the United States’ most important contribution to reducing emissions globally will depend ultimately on whether its world-leading capabilities in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are oriented toward climate solutions with the potential to be adopted everywhere.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.