The election permeated every event I went to. In response to media pessimism that the US elections would incapacitate COP negotiations were two primary (non-mutually exclusive) sentiments:

1. Desperate, relentless optimism. “The laggards must find the political will [to act]” was Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia Yeb Saño’s response at Greenpeace’s press conference.
2. Disillusionment with national governments no matter who was in office, we just have to do it ourselves. Jacob Johns (Hopi and Akimel O’odham Tribes) acknowledged the lack of action even under Biden at the US CAN Wisdom Keepers press conference: “We call for our so-called progressive governments to stand up and create a path to leadership…if we looking at the left wing and right wing governments, we both know they are wings of the same bird.”

Both Climate Action Network (CAN) and the US Delegation took the first approach (they do not often see eye to eye): we are going to try to get as much done as possible, and we should not let the election results stop the progress that science requires.

At the CAN Communications team meeting, they presented crisis responses on rumors that Article 6 may be gavelled through at the opening plenary without following procedure and of course, the US election. They instructed us to respond to any reporter that asked about the US being a lame duck, “wait, so the US runs your country?” to encourage other countries to step up and urge the US to not obstruct negotiations they will likely not return to. After all, the US has never paid its fair share of finance for the past 30 years.

A Center for Biological Diversity press conference focused on ramping up US action in the next two months and not letting other countries hide behind US inaction. Specific durable actions called for were an OECD phase out of $41 billion of oil and gas financing, setting a roadmap for subnational governments to take leadership, packing the court, and shutting down pending projects like the Dakota Access pipeline. RINGO’s US Delegation briefing had much of the same desperate optimism, denouncing the “lame duck” idea but emphasizing how the US would still show up.

On the other hand, the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform Knowledge Sharing session emphasized the second, speaking of disillusionment of all administrations, as they feel they are left to fend for themselves no matter who’s in office. I had nice informal conversations with many others critical of COP and how disconnected and unimpactful it was on local organizing.

One such leader ranted to me about how grassroots aren’t funded anyway, and definitely not so by inaccessible complex global funds, so it did not really matter to him what the NCQG figure was. To him, a change would be to have any money available as many countries do not have the capacity to apply for funding or are discriminated against for corruption while COP29 itself is corrupt: “those that pollute are those setting the agenda.” Instead, grassroots and indigenous communities do the adaptation work themselves while projects are proposed by technical processes that are out-of-touch with local communities.

Other people I spoke with were more nuanced but had similar viewpoints on COP’s out-of-touchness with on-the-ground climate work. The fund figures are paltry and unseen by most communities, yet they require years of exhausting negotiations.

But then why did all of these people keep coming back to COP, if that was their sentiment? And their answer was always the same desperate optimism, that they have no option but to try to change the system even if they did not believe in it at all.