Nationals leader David Littleproud, shadow transport minister Bridget McKenzie and Senate Liberal leader Simon Birmingham have all rejected a backbench push to use Donald Trump’s election in the US to abandon support for net zero by 2050.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has said he is completely committed to the target, attempting to fight the next election on the Coalition’s vague taxpayer-funded nuclear plan that will likely extend the use of coal and gas rather than the 2050 target.

But after Trump’s win, several Nationals backbenchers suggested the policy should be reconsidered, with Senator Matt Canavan calling to withdraw from the Paris agreement and MP Keith Pitt praising Trump’s “bold positions” including on climate change.

Asked if the Coalition should rethink its support for net zero, Littleproud told Sky News: “No.”

He said: “And while President Trump’s made some soundings about that, you have got to understand your place in the world.

“They are 330 million people, we’re 27 million people, we’re a trading nation. The only people that will hurt out of that will be our farmers and our mining sector.”

Littleproud warned that attempting to “lead the world” out of the Paris agreement “will get a tariff whacked on our commodity”, in reference to carbon tariffs, such as the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism.

Littleproud took aim at the Albanese government for its 2030 emissions reduction target, arguing that Australia could reach net zero by “[taking] our time to it and [doing] it properly, so that there isn’t an impact on the economy”.

A consensus of scientists have repeatedly said delaying climate action is worsening catastrophic global heating, including the potential for decades-long megadroughts in Australia.

Littleproud noted that he was “the first leader to be able to get the Coalition to agree to nuclear energy being part of that grid, to have that complement and supplement with gas and coal, with [carbon capture and storage] and having some renewables”, implicitly comparing himself with former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.

“We will have a balance, we’ll do it properly, we’ll do it sensibly. But I think we should just take a deep breath on trying to be Trump-esque here in Australia, because there are unintended consequences, and they are farmers and miners.”

McKenzie said that “the Coalition is absolutely committed to net zero by 2050”.

“In fact it is a fundamental pillar of our drive for net zero with nuclear, which will set us up for energy security into the next century,” she told Guardian Australia.

“The National party has consistently raised issues with the method and aggressive rate of emission reduction and who pays for that … we’ve always said net zero would never be net zero cost, that our industries and our communities would be the most significantly impacted.”

McKenzie specified that she was referring to targets set by state governments and the federal Labor government for 43% emissions reduction by 2030. She said this was impacting regional communities through the renewable rollout and resulting in “aggressive” EV targets.

Birmingham, the opposition foreign affairs spokesperson and leader of moderate Liberals, said the Coalition’s position under Dutton “is solid in both the commitment to net zero and taking difficult decisions to get there, such as zero emissions nuclear technology”.

Ahead of Trump’s election the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, noted earlier in November that the Albanese government and the Biden administration had been “closely aligned in policy and personal terms” and “obviously, having a United States administration with a very forward-leaning climate policy is a good thing”.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Bowen suggested a second Trump administration would be unlikely to live up to the former president’s anti-climate rhetoric on the climate crisis.

Thousands of oysters released into the Firth of Forth appear to be thriving again after a century-long absence from the Scottish estuary since they were lost to overfishing.

Marine experts from Heriot-Watt University who have helped reintroduce about 30,000 European flat oysters to the estuary said divers and underwater cameras showed they were doing well.

The Firth of Forth was once home to one of the largest native European oyster reefs in the north-east Atlantic, yielding up to 30 million oysters a year during the 1800s, but by the beginning of the 1900s they had been fished to local extinction.

Those reintroduced through the Restoration Forth project, which is also planting 4 hectares of seagrass, have so far had an 85% survival rate.

Naomi Arnold, the Restoration Forth project manager from WWF Scotland, said they were “delighted by the early signs of success”.

“This is down to the hard work of not only the staff involved but the hundreds of volunteers who have turned out in all weathers to help us prepare the oysters for deployment and to physically put them in the water,” she said. “This is a key milestone in our project. With this success and the amount we have learned, things are looking very positive for future restoration in the area.”

Since September last year, about 30,000 oysters have been reintroduced at four sites that are being monitored regularly. Edinburgh Shoreline, Fife Coast and Countryside Trust, the Marine Conservation Society, Project Seagrass and the WWF are among those involved in the project.

It has been 100 years since oysters were last present in the estuary. Oysters from the Forth were once transported across the UK and Europe, both for consumption and to restock beds elsewhere. But the pressure of this activity led to the complete collapse of the reefs in the estuary, and the oysters disappeared.

Naomi Kennon, a Heriot-Watt research associate for the project, said: “Over the next year we hope to see these oysters continue to thrive and to start to enhance the biodiversity on the seabed. Oysters enhance water quality through filter feeding, store carbon and enhance biodiversity by creating a complex habitat providing homes and shelter for countless other organisms.”

Those involved hailed the mammoth community effort that had gone into getting the oysters released, with a community engagement and citizen science scheme helping to educate people about their importance.

Anna Inman, a shellfish engagement officer at the Marine Conservation Society, said: “The community support for oyster restoration has been incredible. This achievement is a testament to the dedication of all the volunteers who have generously given their time.

“The project not only aims to revive marine life but also highlights the cultural heritage of oysters and emphasises our collective responsibility to restore and protect our seas for future generations.”

Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and discussed the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The US president-elect advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”, the Post reported.

It added that Trump expressed interest in follow-up conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”.

During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.

According to one former US official who was familiar with the call and spoke to the Washington Post, Trump likely does not want to begin his second presidential term with an escalation in the Ukraine war, “giving him incentive to want to keep the war from worsening”.

In a statement to the outlet, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “President Trump won a historic election decisively and leaders from around the world know America will return to prominence on the world stage. That is why leaders have begun the process of developing stronger relationships with the 45th and 47th president because he represents global peace and stability.”

Trump had also spoken to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to media reports.

Biden has invited Trump to come to the Oval Office on Wednesday, and on Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden’s top message will be his commitment to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. He will also talk to Trump about what’s happening in Europe, in Asia and the Middle East.

“President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe,” Sullivan told CBS.

Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of US military and economic aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised and rallied against with other Republican lawmakers.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry disputed a claim in the Washington Post article that Kyiv was informed of the call and did not object to the conversation taking place. “Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Reuters.

On Friday, the Kremlin said Putin was ready to discuss Ukraine with Trump but that it did not mean that he was willing to alter Moscow’s demands.

On 14 June, Putin set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw all its troops from all the territory of four regions claimed by Russia.

Ukraine rejected that, saying it would be tantamount to capitulation, and that Zelenskyy has put forward a “victory plan” that includes requests for additional military support from the west.

Also on Sunday, Trump spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The chancellor emphasised the German government’s willingness to continue the decades of successful cooperation between the two countries’ governments. They also agreed to work together towards a return to peace in Europe,” a German government spokesperson said.

In a call last week with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, Trump said the US was interested in working with Seoul in the shipbuilding industry, particularly in naval shipbuilding, as well as “promoting genuine peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region,”, the South Korean leader said.

Trump’s call with Putin comes just a day after Bryan Lanza, a senior political adviser to Trump, told the BBC that Ukraine should focus on achieving peace instead of “a vision for winning”.

“When Zelenskyy says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace, once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone,” Lanza told the BBC.

After his comments, a Trump spokesperson said Lanza “was a contractor for the campaign” and that he “does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him”.

One person was killed and 16 others were injured when gunfire erupted at Tuskegee University in Alabama on Sunday, the fourth reported shooting at homecoming events across the US within the last three weeks.

The Tuskegee shooting occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning. The person who was killed was not affiliated with the university, and their parents have been notified, according to the university.

No arrests were immediately announced.

Twelve people were wounded by gunfire, and four others sustained injuries not related to the gunshots, the Alabama law enforcement agency said in a Sunday afternoon update.

“The parents of this individual have been notified. Several others including Tuskegee University students were injured and are receiving treatment at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika and Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery,” the university said in a statement.

An autopsy on the person killed, who is male, was planned at the state’s forensic center in Montgomery, the Macon county coroner Hal Bentley told the Associated Press on Sunday. The city’s police chief, Patrick Mardis, said the injured included a female student who was shot in the stomach and a male student who was shot in the arm.

University officials added that several other students were injured and are currently receiving treatment at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika and Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery.

The Alabama bureau of investigations said it is conducting an investigation into the shooting.

“The university is in the process of completing student accountability and notifying parents. Further updates will be provided as more information becomes available,” the statement from Tuskegee University said.

On 19 October one person was killed and four were injured by by gunfire at Albany State University in Georgia during its homecoming weekend festivities. A suspect has since been arrested, according to the Georgia bureau of investigation.

That same day, three people were killed and eight were injured in a shooting at a homecoming event on the outskirts of Lexington, Mississippi.

On 12 October, a mass shooting during a Tennessee State University homecoming parade in Nashville left one person dead and nine injured. Two suspects were arrested days later on murder charges, ABC reports.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

There were people on the pitch, Chelsea substitutes to be precise, the joy of everyone connected to the club overflowing. Pedro Neto had produced the equaliser with a vicious low drive from distance and if it did not turn out to be the statement victory that Enzo Maresca and his players wanted – a first against a so-called Big Six rival – they could see the merit in a battling draw.

For Arsenal, this was a better performance than some of those of late and yet it was not the result that Mikel Arteta had called for, the one to silence the noise that has built around his club. It was another example of them losing the lead in a big game – after the draws against Manchester City and Liverpool – and it meant they have not won in four Premier League games, a sequence that has yielded two points. They are now nine behind the leaders, Liverpool. Is it too much to recover?

At least they stopped the rot away from home after the losses at Bournemouth and Newcastle; in the Champions League at Inter on Wednesday night, too – all matches lost to nil.

Arteta had claimed his team were playing better than they did during their difficult four-week period last season which started in early December. But, as he added, for it “to be clear and relevant we have to win … especially to answer certain questions”.

Gabriel Martinelli gave them the promise of something glorious, ­finishing with power after a pass from Martin Ødegaard, who returned to the starting XI in impressive style. The captain’s fitness was something; he pushed and probed until the very last. Neto, though, would snatch it all away.

Chelsea have been all about consistency of selection in the league under Maresca, although he had a decision to make at left-back. He went for Marc Cucurella over the club captain, Reece James, sticking with Malo Gusto at right-back. Maresca is no respecter of reputation.

Cucurella versus Bukayo Saka was box office; it would end with him catching the Arsenal man with a late tackle in the 79th minute to force him off. Cucurella was booked. More broadly, he was a symbol of Chelsea’s tenacity, emerging with honours.

It was a fight for the right to play, full-blooded challenges throughout, including a scything Levi Colwill foul on Saka in the 21st minute, which sparked angry words between the benches. Colwill was booked. Moisés Caicedo had a “welcome back” barge for Ødegaard. Ben White got a yellow card for an off-the-ball swipe at Neto.

Cole Palmer was a mixed bag but he pulled off one of his trademark moves on two occasions in the first half, allowing the ball to run across his body and flicking on the afterburners. He did it to Ødegaard at the outset before extending David Raya with a dipping shot. He did it to Thomas Partey before releasing Neto, whose cross was headed high by Noni Madueke.

Chelsea’s big chance of the first half came on 24 minutes when Neto went one way and then the other against White, making the room to cross. Gusto got in front of Martinelli but he could not direct the header.

Arsenal, back to 4-3-3 after mainly being 4-4-2 without Ødegaard, had their moments before the interval – two huge ones, the first leaving Arteta beside himself with frustration. Saka forced the high turnover, blocking a Colwill pass out of defence. It was Ødegaard back to Saka and when his shot was blocked, the ball broke ­perfectly for Martinelli. He had to score – only to sidefoot weakly at Robert Sánchez.

The fine margins were against Arsenal in the 33rd minute. Declan Rice spotted Kai Havertz in yards of space as he addressed a free-kick and so he took it quickly, fizzing the pass up to him. Havertz manoeuvred himself in front of Caicedo and prodded home only for the video assistant referee to see he was fractionally offside.

Havertz had been patched up after the head cut he suffered against Inter and he needed more repairs early in the second half, the wound open again. He was booked for failing to leave the field quickly enough for them but he was back on for the breakthrough goal, Martinelli atoning for his earlier miss.

Ødegaard made it happen, crossing deep to the far post whereupon Martinelli came back inside to widen the angle before banging the shot inside Sánchez’s near post. It was not a good look for the goalkeeper or the Chelsea offside trap, Colwill too deep and playing Martinelli on.

Wesley Fofana had looped a volley off target in the 53rd minute but, with Jurriën Timber shooting just wide, Chelsea needed to dust themselves down. Maresca introduced Enzo Fernández for Roméo Lavia and Mykhailo Mudryk for Madueke, who headed straight down the tunnel.

Fernández was involved in the equaliser, rolling a pass up and across for Neto, but really it was all about the winger’s desire to seize the moment. His touch allowed him to lengthen his stride and he was too quick for Timber and Gabriel Magalhães, who tried to get out. The shot had too much on it for Raya.

The closing stages were frantic, chances at both ends. Arsenal thought they had snatched victory only for the substitute Leandro Trossard to blast high; the offside flag was up. At the very last, Trossard touched wide from a William Saliba cross, taking the ball away from Havertz, who was there for the tap-in behind him. Arteta fell to the ground in anguish. Again, the offside flag had been raised. It was awfully tight.

Nine boats carrying 572 people have been intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel, according to the Home Office.

The latest crossings come after Keir Starmer announced plans to tackle what he described as the “national security threat” of people smugglers, pledging an extra £75m and a new team of detectives.

The arrivals on Saturday brought the total number of people who had made small boat crossings this year to 32,691. The figure is up 22% on the same time last year (26,699) but 18% less than had been recorded by November 2022 (39,929).

There have also been more deaths in the Channel, with four bodies discovered off the coast of Calais on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the French coastguard.

Excluding the latest deaths, which are still being investigated, there are believed to have been 60 fatalities among people attempting to cross the Channel, five times more than last year.

Kent police also said the body of a man was pulled from the Channel on Tuesday as officers were called to Dover lifeboat station.

The prime minister said during a speech at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow last Monday that the government would double funding to £150m for the border security command, the enforcement agency launched by the government in the summer.

On Thursday Starmer announced deals to boost intelligence sharing, expertise and cooperation with Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo at a meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest, Hungary.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, a UK charity, said the government’s “smash the gangs” slogan would not work and appealed for an orderly and fair asylum system to support refugee integration.

Writing in the Guardian, Solomon said: “Smugglers who exploit and endanger the lives of desperate people fleeing brutal wars or tyranny must be stopped and made to face justice. As enforcement tightens, they are cramming more people into boats and pushing off from more dangerous spots.”

There is no need to pick only a few of the many explanations of Donald Trump’s political comeback. Most of the endless reasons we have heard over the past five days ring true: inflation, incumbency, a flimsy Democratic campaign, white Americans’ seemingly eternal issues with race, and what one New York Times essayist recently called “a regressive idea of masculinity in which power over women is a birthright”. But there is another story that has so far been rather more overlooked, to do with how politics now works, and who voters think of when they enter the polling booth.

Its most vivid element is about the left, and one inescapable fact: that a lot of people simply do not like us. In the UK, that is part of the reason why Brexit happened, why Nigel Farage is back, and why our new Labour government feels so flimsy and fragile. In the US, it goes some way to explaining why more than 75 million voters just rejected the supposedly progressive option, and chose a convicted criminal and unabashed insurrectionist to oversee their lives.

The latter story goes beyond Kamala Harris and her failed pitch for power. When established parties on the progressive and conservative wings of politics go into an election, in the minds of many people, they represent a much larger set of forces, whether their candidates like it or not. After all, what people understand as the left and right operate far beyond the institutions of the state: political battles are fought in the media, on the street, in workplaces, campuses, and more. This has always been the case, but as social media turn the noise such activity makes into a deafening din, seeing most big parties and candidates as the tips of much larger icebergs becomes inevitable.

Trump leads the movement that was responsible for the January 6 insurrection, has made less-than-subtle noises about his affinity with the far right, and makes absolutely no bones about any of it. For the Democrats, the lines that connect a centrist figure such as Harris to the wider US left tend to look much fuzzier, but that does not make millions of people’s perceptions of them any less real. Around the world, in fact, the left looks to many voters like a coherent bloc that goes from people who lie in the road and shut down universities to would-be presidents and prime ministers – the only difference between them, as some see it, is that radical activists are honest about their ideas, whereas the people who stand for office try to cover them up.

What the US election result shows is that, when told to make a choice, millions of people will draw on those ideas, and ally themselves with the other political side. Many of them, of course, have arrived at that conclusion thanks to outright bigotry. But given the remarkable spread of votes for Trump – into Latino and black parts of the electorate, and states considered loyal Democratic heartlands, from California to New Jersey – that hardly explains the entirety of his win. What it highlights is something that many American, British and European people have known for the past 15 years, at least: that the left is now alienating huge chunks of its old base of support.

That story has deep roots, partly bound up with the decline of political loyalties based around class: compared with 2008, 2024’s Democratic coalition was skewed towards the higher end of the income range, whereas Trump’s tilted in the other direction. The same kind of fracturing now seems to be affecting many ethnically based political loyalties: as Trump well knows, there are now large numbers of voters from minorities – and immigrant backgrounds – who largely accept rightwing ideas about immigration. That is partly because modern economies create such a desperate competition for rewards.

But there seems to be more to it than that: polling shows the suggestion that “government should increase border security and enforcement” is supported by higher percentages of black and Hispanic voters than among white progressives – but the same applies to “most people can make it if they work hard” and “America is the greatest country in the world”. Growing chunks of the electorate, in other words, are not who the left think they are.

Meanwhile, the widening political gap based around people’s education levels – voters without college degrees supported Trump by a 14-point margin, while Harris had a 13-point advantage among college-educated people – creates yet more problems. Some of them are to do with “wokeness” and its drawbacks. Because the cutting edge of left politics is often associated with institutions of higher education, ideas that are meant to be about inclusivity can easily turn into the opposite. The result is an agenda often expressed with a judgmental arrogance, and based around behavioural codes – to do with microaggressions, or the correct use of pronouns – that are very hard for people outside highly educated circles to navigate.

At the same time, our online discourse hardens good intentions into an all-or-nothing style of activism that will not tolerate nuance or compromise. A message about the left then travels from one part of society to another: there is a transmission belt between clarion calls that do the rounds on college campuses, the Democratic mainstream, and unsettled voters in, say, suburban and rural Pennsylvania. And the right can therefore make hay, as evidenced by a Trump ad that was crass and cruel, but grimly effective: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

In its own ugly way, that line highlights what might have been Trump and his supporters’ strongest asset: the idea that, because they are so distant and privileged, modern progressives would rather ignore questions about everyday economics. Nearly 40% of all Americans say they have skipped meals in order to meet their housing payments, and more than 70% admit to living with economic anxiety. A second Trump term, of course, is hardly going to make that any better: the point is that he was able to successfully pretend that it would.

That then opened the way for something even more jaw-dropping: Trump’s sudden claim to be a great unifier, something implicitly contrasted with progressives’ habit of separating people into demographic islands. It takes an almost evil level of chutzpah to flip from his hate and nastiness to a new message of love for most Americans, but consider what he said about his coalition of voters: “They came from all quarters: union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, Muslim American. We had everybody. And it was beautiful.” That is the increasingly familiar sound of populist tanks being parked on the left’s lawn.

None of this is meant to imply that most progressive causes are mistaken, or to make any argument for leaning into Trumpism. What the state of politics across the west highlights is more about tone, strategy, empathy, and how to take people with you while trying to change society – as well as the platforms that poison democratic debate, and the harm they do to progressive politics. The next time you see someone on the left combusting with self-righteous fury on the hellscape now known as X, it’s worth remembering that its current owner is Elon Musk, who may be about to assist Trump in massively cutting US public spending, while cackling at the weakness of the president’s enemies, and their habit of walking into glaring traps.

Cop29 officially opens on Monday 11 November in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the conference is scheduled to end on 22 November, although it is likely to run later. World leaders – about 100 have said they will turn up – are expected in the first three days, and after that the crunch negotiations will be carried on by their representatives, mostly environment ministers or other high-ranking officials.

The crucial question for the summit is climate finance. Developing countries want assurances that trillions will flow to them in the next decade to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the rapidly receding hope of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, and to enable them to cope with the increasingly evident extreme weather that rising temperatures are driving.

Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijani president

The autocratic president of Azerbaijan since 2003, Ilham Aliyev has used Azerbaijan’s oil wealth to gain international influence for his small country, as well as to enrich his own family. Aliyev is the son of Heydar Aliyev, a national leader when the country was part of the Soviet bloc, who regained power in a 1993 after the country’s first free post-Soviet elections the year before.

Azerbaijan is rated as one of the world’s most corrupt regimes by Transparency International, with a poor record on human rights. Freedom of expression is limited, the media are shackled and campaigners have raised concerns over a number of prisoners held since the conflict with Armenia. Aliyev is likely to shrug off such criticism and focus instead on his plans to generate and export renewable energy and attempts to clean up the Caspian Sea.

Mukhtar Babayev, Cop29 president-designate

The president-designate of Cop29 is Azerbaijan’s minister for ecology and natural resources. Like his predecessor, Sultan Al Jaber, who presided over last year’s Cop28 in Dubai, Babayev has a background in the oil industry. He worked for Socar, the country’s national oil company, from 1994 to 2018, before his ministerial appointment.

Babayev, an affable and competent figure, is well regarded among developing and developed countries at the talks, though he was little known before Azerbaijan’s surprise decision to take on the hosting of Cop29. Choosing the host nation was a troubled process, only resolved at the last moment during last year’s Cop28.

This year is the turn of the post-Soviet bloc to host, and several eastern European EU members including Romania, Bulgaria and Poland had expressed an interest. All were vetoed by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, angered by the EU’s response to his invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan was regarded as an outside possibility because of the conflict with Armenia that has rumbled on through two decades, flaring into outright war last September before subsiding into an uneasy de facto truce.

But just as the organisers were preparing emergency plans to host the Cop at one of the UN’s campuses, Putin indicated he would allow the choice and Armenia supported the bid, leaving Azerbaijan’s president to make Babayev the obvious appointment.

He will be assisted by Yalchin Rafijev, the deputy foreign minister with a background in diplomacy, who is chief negotiator and the key point of contact for delegations.

Sultan Al Jaber, Cop 29 president

At last year’s Cop28 summit in Dubai, nations made a historic agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels. It was a weaker commitment than the full-blooded “phase-out” of fossil fuels that many countries and activists wanted, but – astonishingly – it represented the first time that these three decades of talks have produced a commitment to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis.

The promise was largely the work of the Cop29 president, the United Arab Emirates minister Sultan Al Jaber. A charismatic figure who is also chief of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, Al Jaber dominated the Dubai conference and helped bring Saudi Arabia to the table.

That will not be the last of his influence. After Cop28, Al Jaber also masterminded continued influence over the process by helping to institute a new “troika” system for Cops, whereby the current Cop presidency is joined by the immediate past presidency and the designated next presidency to provide a degree of continuity that should safeguard progress made at previous Cops and strengthen future commitments.

Marina Silva, Brazil environment minister

There were high hopes that Cop29 would be galvanised by the presence of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose outspoken espousal of a billionaire tax has endeared him to activists and vulnerable countries. But he is unlikely to make it, so his place is most likely to be taken by environment and climate minister, Marina Silva.

Brazil occupies at key position at Cop29 as the prospective president of Cop30. Next year, at Belem in the Amazon, countries must arrive with fresh national plans – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – enforcing more stringent cuts to greenhouse gas emissions than they have yet promised. These must be in line with the globally accepted aim of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

Brazil, as the third member of the troika, will want to use Cop29 to chivvy laggard governments to present their NDCs as early as possible. Technically the deadline is February, but many countries are likely to see Cop30 itself as the de facto deadline.

António Guterres, UN secretary general

The UN secretary general is probably the most outspoken senior figure on the world stage on the climate crisis. He has talked of humanity committing “collective suicide” and has targeted fossil fuel companies who “have humanity by the throat”. Amid rapidly rising temperatures, he memorably warned that we are understating the seriousness of the crisis: “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Guterres will champion developing nations at Cop29, encouraging and berating rich countries into providing more climate finance. He is likely to be equally outspoken to leaders of countries with high emissions and inadequate reduction plans and, most of all, to the fossil fuel executives who are expected to turn up in large numbers as many multinational oil and gas companies, including BP and Shell, have strong interests in Azerbaijan.

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Climate-related disaster struck close to home this year for the UN’s climate chief. Simon Stiell is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the treaty under which this “conference of the parties” (Cop) is held – and comes from the island of Carriacou, in Grenada. It was hit by Hurricane Beryl in July.

Stiell spoke movingly from the site of his grandmother’s house, utterly destroyed in the disaster. “What I’m seeing on my home island, Carriacou, must not become humanity’s new normal,” he said. “If governments everywhere don’t step up, 8 billion people will be facing this blunt force trauma head-on, on a continuous basis. We need climate action back at the top of political agendas.”

Stiell’s job at Cop29 will be to work closely with the Azerbaijani presidency, acting as an honest broker to all 198 parties, and guiding an agreement through the complexities of the UNFCCC process.

Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados

The prime minister of Barbados, under whom the country removed the British crown as head of state to become a fully fledged republic, has been an electrifying presence at recent Cops, and her mission to force the restructuring of international financial institutions has already borne fruit, with the new World Bank president, Ajay Banga, promising to take a more active role in climate finance.

Mottley wants to go much further and secure the flow of trillions of dollars of investment each year to the developing world, to transform the global economy and provide protection for those most at risk of climate disaster. She has forged close ties with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who held a climate finance summit last year, and with the Kenyan president, William Ruto.

With Cop29 focused on climate finance, she will be a linchpin for developing countries seeking climate justice in the face of inaction by the worst greenhouse gas emitters.

Ajay Banga, World Bank president

With climate finance top of the Cop29 agenda, the World Bank president Ajay Banga is in pole position to make a difference. But will he order the sweeping reforms to the bank’s practices that developing countries say are needed?

The World Bank held its annual autumn meetings last month, but there was little progress on climate finance. The group is awaiting a pledging conference next month, where developed countries must increase the amount of money they are prepared to put towards developing country finance. Focusing on that may mean that Banga has little to offer at Cop29, but that will not satisfy his critics.

The Americans

Joe Biden is not expected to attend Cop29, nor will his successor Donald Trump. During his last presidency, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris agreement, and he is likely to do so again. However, the delegation for the US at Cop29 will be from the Biden White House, as Trump will not take office until January. The “lame duck” delegation can still participate in the negotiations, and though they will not be able to bind the US government to clear future financial commitments, they are unlikely to stand in the way of agreement by other countries, meaning that the core decisions expected to made at Cop29 on finance can still go ahead.

Wopke Hoekstra, EU climate commissioner

The EU delegation to Cop29 will be rather a skeleton staff this year, as key figures – such as Teresa Ribera, the former Spanish environment minister who has played a galvanising role in recent Cops and is relishing the prospect of a new role as vice-president of the European Commission, and Dan Jorgensen, former Danish environment minister and another Cop veteran who will be the new EU energy and housing chief – are undergoing their confirmation processes, which will not be completed until a vote in the EU parliament on 1 December.

Hoekstra, who served as climate commissioner in the last iteration of the commission and keeps the job for this one, is a confirmed participant, leading the EU negotiations for the second week of the talks. He faces a big challenge – the EU is the biggest provider of climate finance around the world, but a rightward slant to the new parliament and among some member state governments may cut down on the bloc’s freedom to manoeuvre at the talks.

Liu Zhenmin, China’s climate spokesperson

Cop29 will be the first proper outing for the new Chinese climate envoy. His predecessor, Xie Zhenhua, was a key figure at Cops for two decades and enjoyed a cordial relationship with John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate. Both retired earlier this year.

Liu and his US counterpart, Kerry’s successor John Podesta, have enjoyed some warm meetings this year, including one at Podesta’s home. But even cosy dinners cannot disguise the real tensions between the two powers. China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by a long way, responsible for close to a third of global emissions, and is also the world’s second biggest economy, after the US. Yet China clings to its status as a developing country, under the 1992 UNFCCC treaty, and has refused to take on obligations to provide finance to the poor world, though it does provide such assistance on a voluntary level and under its own terms.

China will come under fierce pressure from the EU and the US to make commitments on climate finance and to demonstrate that its emissions will peak soon and fall sharply in the next iteration of its NDC. China and the US will also hold a methane summit during Cop29, at which activists will be hoping for concrete new measures to curb the powerful greenhouse gas, rather than the good intentions that have been the only outcomes of previous talks.

Ed Miliband, UK secretary of state for energy security and net zero

Cop29 will mark a resonant return to the world stage for Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, who played a significant role in salvaging a partial deal from the tumultuous Copenhagen Cop in 2009. In recent years, he has attended Cops as an opposition minister, well-respected and listened to, with a wide network of international contacts among delegations and Cop veterans.

In stark contrast to his Tory predecessors, who tended to send junior ministers – and not always for the key moments – Miliband will take charge of the negotiations himself throughout the conference, he will be assisted by Rachel Kyte, the newly appointed climate envoy, a post that had been scrapped by Rishi Sunak.

Keir Starmer, prime minister of the UK

At last year’s Cop in Dubai, Starmer got his first taste of what leading on the world stage might be like, and it clearly had an impact. He used his first speech to his fellow world leaders, at the UN general assembly in September, to declare the climate crisis a key priority. “We are returning the UK to responsible global leadership,” he said. “Because it is right – yes, absolutely. But also because it is plainly in our self-interest … the threat of climate change is existential and it is happening in the here and now. So we have reset Britain’s approach.”

He will come to Cop29 armoured with action: he will unveil the UK’s NDC, expected to promise deep cuts in emissions, in an attempt to rally other nations to make similarly bold pledges. A key question he must also answer is how the UK intends to make good on the pledge made under Boris Johnson to spend £11.6bn on climate aid to developing countries by 2026. By the last days of Sunak’s government, only 45% of the total had been disbursed, leaving a heavier burden on Labour to make up the shortfall.

Strongmen surprises in store?

Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan in August for meetings with Aliyev, to underscore the resumption of a relationship that has been tested in the last three years, after the Cop host took over the supply of gas to the EU as the bloc tried to cut its dependence on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan also has its own links to Ukraine.

But Azerbaijan only managed to supply the EU so fruitfully by importing Russian gas for its own needs, demonstrating the relationship that still exists between the former Soviet pair.

Putin’s August visit was the first in six years. He is still unlikely to make an appearance at Cop29, but the Russian delegation is likely to have more behind-the-scenes involvement than it usually enjoys.

Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, received a warm personal invitation to the talks by Aliyev. Modi has skipped recent Cops and is viewed as unlikely to attend this one, but there is still an outside chance that Aliyev’s urging might tempt him. India has taken a trenchant line on climate finance, blasting developed countries for failing to do enough and demanding £1tn a year. The country also continues to depend heavily on coal, despite a burgeoning renewable energy sector.

Other strongmen of the world have also been mooted as potential visitors, but few are likely to be among the 100 world leaders coming. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was invited to Cop28 in Dubai, but did not attend. Nicolás Maduro, who fraudulently claimed re-election in Venezuela, may wish to try to legitimise his presidency by coming to enjoy the company of his fellow oil producers.