Picture an all-seeing eye scanning the dying Earth – and then lighting on our ‘solutions’ at Cop29 | George Monbiot

All the signs are there, of an Earth system sliding towards collapse, as it has done five times since animals with hard body parts first evolved.

But this time, it knows, is different. Not only is one of the life forms causing the collapse, but it too can see what is happening.

The most powerful people in the nation are seeking to stifle knowledge, roll back beneficial technologies and appease the interests pushing Earth systems towards their tipping points.

The Azerbaijani government has used the event to try to arrange new fossil fuel deals.

Some of the governments gathering in Baku are using the unravelling in the US as a licence to downgrade or abandon their own feeble efforts.

Monbiot concludes that this is a species beset by a lethal combination of conformity, distraction and a fear of offending powerful interests, actively collaborating in its own extinction.