Zero

COP29's Last-Minute $300 Billion Deal Is a Mess and a Miracle

“Goals and targets are one thing, but delivering is the next thing,” Mette Frederiksen, prime minister of Denmark, says on this week’s Zero

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, at the COP29 climate conference in Baku.

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
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It went well past the official deadline, late into the night – but finally, COP29 ended with a deal. Hardly anyone felt victorious.

Back from Baku, Azerbaijan, reporter Akshat Rathi tells producer Mythili Rao what made COP29 a success, and how it fell short — taking stock of COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev’s performance, the eleventh-hour theatrics, and the particular ways this year’s conference tested the multilateral process.