BAKU – For the third year in a row, efforts to combat climate change have failed to reduce predictions of how much warmer the world will get – even as countries gather for a new round of talks to curb warming, according to an analysis on Thursday.

At UN climate talks hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, nations are trying to set new targets to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and figure out how much rich nations will pay to help the world with the task.

But Earth remains on track to be 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in pre-industrial times, according to Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists and analysts who study government policies and translate that in heating projections. Recent developments in China and the United States will slightly worsen the outlook.

If emissions continue to rise and temperature forecasts don’t drop, people should question whether the United Nations climate change negotiations — known as the COP — are doing any good, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare.

“There’s a lot of positive things going on here, but in the big picture of doing things to reduce emissions … it seems broken to me,” Hare said.

Climate action is stifled by the biggest emitters

The world has already warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times. That’s close to the 1.5 degrees (2.7 F) limit countries agreed to at the Paris climate talks in 2015. Climate scientists say atmospheric warming, mainly from human burning of fossil fuels, is causing weather from increasingly extreme and damaging, including droughts, floods and dangerous heat.

The Climate Action Tracker makes projections under several different scenarios, and in some cases they rise slightly.

“This is driven by China,” said Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga of Climate Analytics. Even as China’s fast-growing emissions begin to pick up, they are peaking higher than anticipated, she said.

Another factor not yet in the calculations is the US election. A Trump administration that rolls back climate policies from the Inflation Reduction Act and carries out the conservative Plan 2025 would add 0.04 degrees Celsius (0.07 Fahrenheit) to warming projections, Gonzales-Zuniga said. It’s not much, but it could be more if other nations use it as an excuse to do less, she said. And a reduction in US financial aid could also factor further into the future temperature outlook.

“For the US it goes backwards,” Hare said. At least China has a more optimistic future, with a potentially gigantic drop in future emissions, he said.

“We should already be seeing (global) emissions going down,” and they’re not, Hare said. “The political system, the politicians do not react. And I think that’s something that people everywhere should be concerned about.”

Experts say $1 trillion in climate money is needed for developing countries

The major battle in Baku is over how much rich nations will help poor countries decarbonize their energy systems, deal with the future damage of climate change and pay for the damage caused by extreme warming weather. The old aid target of $100 billion a year is expiring, and Baku’s main goal is to come up with a new, higher figure.

A special panel of independent experts commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued its own estimate of costs and finances on Thursday, calling for a tripling of the old commitment.

“Advanced economies need to demonstrate a credible commitment” to helping poor nations, the report said.

A coalition of developing nations at the Baku talks is calling for $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance. The report by independent experts says developing nations need about $1 trillion a year from all external sources, not just government subsidies.

Negotiators are still determining how much money will be on the table for the final deal, but indications late Wednesday suggested that many options are still on the table.

“The needs of developing countries are in the trillions and it is obvious that such an amount cannot be provided from public funding, but rather private investment must be brought to the table,” said German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan. “All financial players must do their part.”

COP29 chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev said getting a deal with money for developing nations was “our top priority”.

The report detailed how expensive it would be to decarbonize the world economy, how much it would cost and where the money might come from. Overall climate adaptation spending for all countries is estimated to reach $2.4 trillion per year.

It’s personal for many activists in countries facing the worst and most immediate effects of climate change, such as Sandra Leticia Guzman Luna, who is from Mexico and director of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean. “We’re seeing climate impacts that cause a lot of costs, not only economic costs, but also human losses,” she said.

“I’m from one of the countries that has to pay and it’s historically responsible,” said Bianca Castro, a climate activist from Portugal. “Year after year, we come to the COP and are heartbroken by what doesn’t happen, but we know it has to happen.”

Tense politics isolates some nations

Argentina pulled out of climate talks on Wednesday at the behest of its president, climate skeptic Javier Milei, as first reported by Climatica. The Argentine government did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment.

Climate activists found the decision regrettable.

“It’s largely symbolic and all it does is take the country out of critical conversations about climate finance,” said Anabella Rosemberg, a native of Argentina who works as a senior adviser at Climate Action Network International. “It is hard to see how a climate-vulnerable country like Argentina would withdraw from the critical support negotiated here at COP29.”

At the same time, the French environment minister, who was due to lead the delegation, pulled out of the talks after Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, called out France and the Netherlands for their colonial history in a speech on Wednesday.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher called Aliyev’s remarks on France and Europe “unacceptable.” Speaking in the French Senate on Wednesday, Pannier-Runacher criticized Azerbaijan’s leader for using the fight against climate change “for a shameful personal agenda”.

“Direct attacks on our country, its institutions and territories are unjustifiable,” she said, adding that it was “ironic that Azerbaijan, a repressive regime, is giving lessons on human rights.”

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Associated Press reporter Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report from Paris.

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