As the world reels from a year of record heat and looks all but certain to suffer another, delegates from nearly 200 countries have descended on Baku, Azerbaijan, for this year’s United Nations climate summit—known as COP29—which runs from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22.

This summit’s primary focus is a contentious one: money. Developing nations are responsible for a disproportionately small share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they face the brunt of climate change’s impacts, often with fewer tools to cope. In Baku, negotiators will be hashing out how much money should go to helping these countries adapt to a warming world and slash their own emissions, as well as which governments should help foot the bill.

As the world reels from a year of record heat and looks all but certain to suffer another, delegates from nearly 200 countries have descended on Baku, Azerbaijan, for this year’s United Nations climate summit—known as COP29—which runs from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22.

This summit’s primary focus is a contentious one: money. Developing nations are responsible for a disproportionately small share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they face the brunt of climate change’s impacts, often with fewer tools to cope. In Baku, negotiators will be hashing out how much money should go to helping these countries adapt to a warming world and slash their own emissions, as well as which governments should help foot the bill.

“The U.S., EU, [and] Australia built their economies on fossil fuels. Those fossil fuels caused pollution, and that pollution now is causing catastrophic harm,” said Alice Hill, who was previously a special assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council. “There is a question of: Who pays for that harm?”

Answering that question was always expected to spark a grueling debate. But the issue has been further complicated by the recent reelection of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who spent his first term in office dismissing climate change as a “hoax,” dismantling U.S. environmental regulations, and yanking Washington out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. His team has signaled that it will go even further during his second term, casting a pall over negotiations in Baku.

“The shadow of President Trump’s election will be palpable,” said Hill, who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Everyone going in there knows that the politics in Washington have taken a........

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