The annual U.N. climate summit kicks off Monday with countries readying for tough talks on finance and trade, following a year of weather disasters that have emboldened developing countries in their demands for climate cash.

Delegates gathering in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku are hoping to resolve the summit’s top agenda item – a deal for up to $1 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries.

The summit’s negotiating priorities, however, are competing for governments’ resources and attention against economic concerns, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and last week’s U.S. re-election of Donald Trump, a climate-change denier, as president of the world’s biggest economy.

COP29 host Azerbaijan will be tasked with keeping countries focused on agreeing to a new global finance target to replace the current $100 billion pledge expiring this year.

The Caspian Sea nation, often proud of being home to the world’s first oil wells, will also be under pressure to show progress from last year’s COP28 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels.

The country’s oil and gas revenues accounted for 35% of its economy in 2023, down from 50% two years prior. The government says these revenues will continue to decline, to roughly 32% of its GDP this year and 22% by 2028.

A guide to COP29 climate jargon

Here’s a guide to some of the terms in play at this year’s COP29 discussions.

UNFCCC: This acronym stands for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the name of both the 1992 treaty committing nearly 200 countries to fighting global warming and the secretariat set up to implement that treaty.

COP: This acronym stands for Conference of Parties, and describes the annual summit of countries that have signed the UNFCCC treaty. This year’s COP29 meeting in Baku marks the 29th such gathering since the UNFCCC took effect in 1994.

NCQG: This relatively new acronym will be focal at COP29. It stands for the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, an annual target for funding developing country climate efforts.

NDC: Most often, these NDCs or Nationally Determined Contributions are referred to simply as “country pledges” and describe national action plans for reducing its emissions and adapting to climate impacts. The next round of NDCs are due in February, though some countries plan to submit new plans in Baku.

GLOBAL WARMING: The term describes the gradual increase in the global average temperature.

CLIMATE CHANGE: While this term is often used interchangeably with “global warming,” it means something different. Climate change describes global warming as well as its consequences, such as extreme weather events.

GREENHOUSE GASES: These gases, sometimes referred to simply as GHGs, are able to trap solar heat in the atmosphere and cause global warming. The most powerful GHGs are methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), which are also referred to as “carbon emissions” because both molecules contain carbon. The world’s excess carbon emissions come mostly from the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities.

PARIS AGREEMENT: Under this 2015 treaty from the COP21 talks in Paris, countries agreed to try to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above the pre-industrial average, with a goal of holding it to 1.5C (2.7F). The Paris pact also calls for national emissions-cutting pledges to be updated every five years.

NET ZERO: This term does not mean releasing zero emissions, but rather releasing no more than the amount being recaptured by CO2 abatement technologies, tree planting, or other means. Reaching “net zero” would mean atmospheric GHG concentrations stop increasing.

LOSS AND DAMAGE: Governments last year pledged $800 million toward a new ‘loss and damage’ fund to help poorer nations being hit by climate-fueled disasters. The fund, which now has a director and a host nation, will now be deciding how the funds should be dispersed and calling for more contributions at COP29.

CARBON OFFSET: Also known as a “carbon credit,” these instruments allow a country or company to compensate for some of their carbon emissions by investing in projects to bring emissions down elsewhere.

ARTICLE 6: This term refers to a provision in the Paris Agreement on carbon offsets, and is used as shorthand for UNFCCC efforts to regulate international trading in carbon credits. Governments are hoping to resolve rules for trading carbon offsets at COP29 to allow for these markets to become operational.

Before the summit talks can even begin, countries will need to agree on an agenda by consensus – including an 11th-hour proposal by China to bring trade disputes into the mix.

The Chinese proposal – made on behalf of the fast-developing “BASIC” group of countries including Brazil, India and South Africa – asked for the summit to address “restrictive trade measures” such as the EU’s carbon border tariffs going into effect in 2026.

Those concerns have been compounded by Trump’s campaign promise to impose 20% tariffs on all foreign goods – and 60% on Chinese goods.

China’s request showed it was flexing power following Trump’s re-election, which signaled the United States’ likely disengagement from global climate cooperation, said Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the global treaty to reduce planet-warming emissions.

The European Union, along with current U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, have been pressing China and Gulf oil nations to join the pool of climate finance donor countries.

“If the EU wants to talk about climate finance with China, if it wants to talk NDCs, part of the conversation should be how to resolve our differences on trade and your tariffs,” Shuo said.

EXTREME PRESSURE

With this year on track to be the hottest on record, experts noted that climate extremes were now challenging rich and poor countries alike – from flooding disasters in Africa, coastal Spain and the U.S. state of North Carolina, to drought gripping South America, Mexico and the U.S. West.

Most countries are not prepared.

“Election results don’t alter the laws of physics,” said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

“Unless the world collectively steps up its efforts, the impacts of climate change will become increasingly severe and frequent and will be felt by an increasing number of people in all countries, including in the United States.”

Many in Baku were worried that a U.S. disengagement could lead other countries to backpedal on past climate pledges or to scale back future ambitions.

“That is definitely a risk. People will be saying, well, the U.S. is the second biggest emitter. It’s the biggest economy in the world … If they don’t set themselves an ambitious target, why would we?” Marc Vanheukelen, the EU’s climate ambassador from 2019 to 2023, told Reuters.

GIFT OF GAS

Azerbaijan has spent the last year lobbying governments to accelerate their move to clean energy while touting gas as a transition fuel.

With Azeri President Ilham Aliyev having called its fossil fuel bounty “a gift of God,” Azerbaijan has proposed creating a Climate Finance Action Fund to collect voluntarily up to $1 billion from extractive companies across 10 countries including Azerbaijan.

This year, the country’s gas exports to Europe are expected to exceed 12 billion cubic meters, up from 11.8 billion cubic meters last year, as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.

The country’s chief COP29 negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, said gas remained a key part of the energy mix for countries with limited alternatives.

“In this context, we must intensify our efforts to align natural gas usage with greenhouse gas reduction goals,” Yalchin told Reuters.

Environmental groups and climate scientists have criticised the promotion of gas as a clean energy option, noting that it is a climate-polluting fossil fuel.

Presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said that, with its buildup of renewables, Azerbaijan was “moving from fossil fuel exports to green electricity exports.” The country aims to have renewable energy fueling 35% of its power plant capacity by 2030. Last year, this figure was about 20%.

Azerbaijan also has fought criticism for its jailing political prisoners including journalists, and ethnic Armenians that Azerbaijan describes as separatist leaders.

Azerbaijan’s Aliyev has rejected the criticism and warned that it could undermine the fragile peace negotiations between the two former Soviet republics.