Under the shadow of the US election results – and Trump’s vow to once again retreat from international climate diplomacy once in office – the world now turns its focus towards Baku in Azerbaijan. With more than 180 countries already on the ground, and following several regional climate events that took place this year, COP29 is an opportunity for the world’s leaders to agree on how we can save our ecosystem and achieve climate balance.
According to the largest Earth observatories, including NASA (USA) and Coppernicus (EU), 2024 is the warmest year on record, followed by 2023. Average temperatures over the past 12 months have exceeded 1.5C compared to pre-industrial levels. This is the threshold that the Paris Agreement aims to maintain, with current projections pointing towards a catastrophic >2.2C increase at the end of the century.
With this as its backdrop, the BBC reported earlier this week that the CEO of the COP29 process and Deputy Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, Elnur Soltanov, was filmed promoting the oil & gas industry to pretend ‘investors’ while offering contacts to SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s nationally owned oil company. According to US figures, oil and gas accounts for about half of Azerbaijan’s total economy and more than 90% of its exports. However, Azerbaijan is a particularly interesting example given its heavy dependence on fossil fuels for its energy consumption, but also its vulnerability to climate change being one of the 20 most water-scarce countries globally.
As climate change fuels domestic political tensions worldwide, some key countries now appear to place national concerns above the urgent calls for global climate action. In a striking expression of this shift, several influential leaders will be absent from COP29, casting doubt on the unity of international climate efforts. This year’s notable absences include France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, and Ursula von der Leyen, as well as U.S. President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and Australia’s Anthony Albanese. Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister even dismissed the event as “a total waste of time.” These absences underscore the contradiction at hand: just when international coordination is most crucial, national priorities and political instability seem to push climate diplomacy to the sidelines, leaving the path to collective action more fractured than ever.
So, what is COP?
Standing for Conference of the Parties, the COPs serve as crucial global fora for nations to collaboratively address climate change, set targets, and coordinate efforts to mitigate its impacts. Since entering into force in 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) has provided the basis for international climate negotiations, including landmark agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015). The UNFCCC itself is a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992 – shortly after the first assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990 – to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
Every year, countries that have joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet to measure progress and negotiate multilateral responses to climate change. Today there are 198 Parties to the Convention. Rotating annually among the five United Nations regional groups, the conference serves as a platform for the formal meetings of:
· the Supreme Bodies: Conference of the Parties (COP), Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) and Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA);
· the Subsidiary Bodies: Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA);
· the bodies which have concluded their work: Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA), Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA).
Each year, a different COP Presidency is assigned to host the conference and act as a facilitator among the 198 parties, aiding the negotiation over a twelve-month period. Since the COVID pandemic, the conference was hosted by the UK in Glasgow (COP26 – 2021), Egypt in Sharm El Sheikh (COP27 – 2022) and the UAE in Dubai (COP28 – 2023).
Why does COP matter?
Despite the inherent irony of petro-states hosting the global Climate Change conversation that tries to tackle our society’s addiction to fossil fuels, COP remains one of the few platforms we as humanity have achieved to host an international dialogue on the climate challenge.
In COP28 Dubai, I had the privilege of attending a closed-door conversation with the Assistant Secretary General of the UN for Climate, Selwin Hart, as a representative of the European Youth. Concerns were raised by young people from across the globe about the systemic silencing of climate-vulnerable peoples, the harsh and consistent criminal prosecution of climate activists by autocratic governments, the dangers of greenwashing (i.e. misleading information to make something appear as environmentally friendly) as well as the influence of privately owned, fossil-based companies on policy-making by governments. After listening to all concerns for one hour, ASG Hart shared with us his thoughts and summarised the importance of COP platforms as follows:
We must not be discouraged by the final texts coming out of COP28 Dubai. This is the first time the world is actively engaged in moving our economies away from fossil. We are at war with fossil fuel interests. The two weeks of COP bring national positions to the surface and give us an opportunity to shift the needle in the right direction. However, the majority of the work is done in the 50 weeks outside of the annual COP, and that is where the front line of this climate war needs to shift.
What to look out for in COP29?
This year’s COP is particularly significant as we navigate a very complex geopolitical landscape, with war in the European continent as well as the Middle East, all while striving for meaningful climate action under increasing time pressures. The urgency of our climate crisis has never been more pronounced and the EU has suffered from prolonged heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes and floods like the most recent ones in Spain, all events that also impacted countries around the world this year, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
Dubbed the ‘Finance COP,’ COP29 has a few key negotiation points that will determine how the coming years unfold.
New Collective Quantified Goal – NCQG
The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is a global commitment to significantly increase climate finance flows to developing countries. This goal aims to replace the previous $100 billion annual commitment, which was set in 2009, but was met with a staggering 2-year delay according to the OECd. The NCQG will be negotiated in COP29 and is designed to provide adequate and predictable financial resources to help developing countries across all three pillars of Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience. The NCQG is a critical step towards addressing the global climate crisis and ensuring a just and equitable transition to a low-carbon future. Solidarity levies can play a vital role in helping meet an ambitious NCQGand the decision text can issue a clear call to action to encourage further international cooperation on solidarity levies.
Nationally Determined Contributions – NDCs
At COP29 we are expecting all parties – especially the major polluting countries, to announce their intentions around the Nationally Determined Contributions that are due in 2025, in line with the Paris Agreement. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are commitments made by countries under the Paris Agreement to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. Each country is responsible for setting its own NDCs, which are intended to be increasingly ambitious over time, and the Conference will set the tone for the ambition required to limit the increase of temperatures to 1.5C below pre-industrial levels.
A good guide on suggested ‘tests’ for 1.5C aligned NDCs can be found HERE.
Key Elements for a 1.5°C-aligned NCQG include:
· A Mix of Public and Private Finance: public finance provided and private investment mobilised with recognition of the role that development banks, other (international) financial institutions ((I)FIs), and subnational governments play.
· Equitable Thematic Balance: qualifying the allocation and type of finance most relevant for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.
· Mobilisation Quantum: $455 billion to $2.4 trillion to address the needs of developing countries, with a significant part of this as public finance provision that addresses specific needs for grants and concessional finance across mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.
· Quality and Transparency: Harmonise access, improve concessionality, and enhance accountability and transparency through reporting mechanisms and mobilisation targets.
· Role of nature: All governments need to ensure that the NCQG takes full account of the role of nature in implementing the Paris Agreement.
Article 6 – Carbon Market
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is a complex and crucial element of the global climate action plan. It establishes a framework for international cooperation on carbon markets and other market-based mechanisms. Article 6 allows countries to trade carbon credits to provide a cost-effective way for countries to meet their climate targets. Rules around carbon markets need to be ironed out and work towards regulations and guidelines for the structuring of this market will be prioritised, while ensuring that carbon credits represent real emission reductions and avoid any negative impacts on ecosystems. The US, along with LMDC and the Arab Group, have historically been rather against improving Article 6.2 rules on authorisation, sequencing and inconsistencies. While the US’ position may have somewhat shifted in the last months towards allowing for improvement of certain rules, pressure will be important to ensure they go further.
The US void
The US is one of the top global polluters overall and even under Democratic leadership, the US hasn’t provided much support in terms of financing the transition of the developing world. At COP29 Individual countries will have to clarify their positions and Baku needs to send a clear message that the world can mitigate the damage done by a fossil-fuel-backed Trump administration. Trump has already indicated his intention to step up the US domestic production of fossil fuels, reviving the Republican ‘Drill Baby Drill’ slogan from 2008. The risk of the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement or the whole of the UNFCCC is significant, and the isolationist tendencies of the US will create a leadership void in the international climate landscape, to be claimed by other international actors ready to step up.
China is currently a major exporter of renewables’ technologies with global markets favouring their cost-competitive solar, wind and storage solutions over other alternatives available. The EU is in a strong position to seize this opportunity and claim international leadership for the climate agenda, however, representatives of the EPP seem to emphasise that the US and China are still expected to carry the brunt of the transition towards sustainability. Even though that may be true due to the EU falling behind in terms of industrial and economic capabilities Europe is at the top of the leaderboard with China and the US in terms of historical emissions per country.
Loss & Damage fund
Loss and Damage has emerged as a critical issue in the global climate discourse. The establishment of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FrLD) at COP28 marks a significant step forward in addressing the growing challenges of climate-induced loss and damage, acknowledging the urgent need to address the increasing economic and social costs of climate change and provide relief and rehabilitation financing to those impacted most. Following recent floods in southern Europe, this has also been raised as a challenge within the European bodies for those carrying the brunt of climate impact. However, significant challenges remain, including the need for increased financial support, technology transfer, and capacity building. As COP29 approaches, it is crucial to monitor the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund, the mobilization of additional financial resources, and the development of effective strategies to prevent, minimize, and address loss and damage. With currently less than $800M pledged for the fund, which is negligible compared to the amounts required to address the scale of loss and damage globally, it is crucial to secure significant financial commitments, including through the NCQG, and to prioritize grant-based financing to avoid increasing the debt burden of vulnerable countries.
Conclusion
As we approach COP29, the stakes are high and the world watches with anticipation nations getting together to negotiate around the climate crisis and our transitions towards clean energy systems and circular economies. With the world coagulating in polarized ideological camps it is now more than ever that strong and effective leadership is desperately needed. The decisions made in Baku will shape our planet’s future.
It is imperative that we all, both as individuals and as a global community, engage with the process, question interests and influences, and hold leaders accountable for their decisions. Let us use this opportunity to demand ambitious climate action, support vulnerable communities, and invest in a sustainable future. The time for delay is over; the time for decisive action is now.