COP29 Reflections
Ingrid Timboe, Deputy Executive Director, AGWA
15 December 2024
The latest UNFCCC COP (COP29) took place from 11-24 November in Baku, Azerbaijan. AGWA participated in both weeks and was active in over 20 events throughout the conference. For a full list of AGWA-related events, including several recordings, please see our COP29 webpage.
Heading into Baku, there was a general feeling that negotiations among the Parties would be especially fractious, given the focus on climate finance, including the establishment of a new annual collective finance goal. The essential questions of who must pay, who is eligible to receive the funding, and how much, remained unresolved as pre-COP negotiations at the mid-year conference in June (SB60) made no progress on these issues.
The outcome of the U.S. election further dampened the mood on finance. With President-elect Donald Trump likely to once again withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the U.S. delegation at COP29 played a much smaller role, unable to commit to major funding under the new goal. And with further political and economic uncertainty facing traditional climate finance donors like Germany and France, many were bracing for a disappointing outcome at COP29.
There were also major complaints regarding the COP29 host country, Azerbaijan, beginning before the conference even began when it was reported that the COP29 Chief Executive had been using his position to facilitate deals for Azerbaijan's state-owned oil and gas company.
Other incidents included Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev stating that oil and gas was a “gift from God” during his opening speech, the quick push through of Article 6 negotiations (carbon markets) on the first day, accusations that the lead negotiators for Azerbaijan were only sharing draft text with certain countries (a significant breach of protocol, if true), and the fractious management of the closing plenary, which did not take place until Sunday 24 November, two days after COP was scheduled to end. These events undermined confidence in the process and at times threatened to tank the entire negotiations.
In the end there were several agenda items that did end up passing, including a diminished climate finance goal that was received with near universal disappointment, but most of the agenda was "Rule 16'ed" meaning that those items were not even discussed and pushed to future meetings. Unlike the past few COPs, there was no negotiated cover decision at COP29.
Below is a selection of the major items from COP29. For a full readout from the conference, I recommend checking out the extensive reporting done by Carbon Brief and IISD's Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
As noted above, the big headline was around finance and the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Parties eventually agreed for developed countries to channel $300 Billion per year by 2035 to developing countries in support of their climate agendas. This was far short of the $1.3 Trillion that developing countries had called for. It was instead agreed that Parties would work together to raise the $1.3 Trillion from a “variety of sources.” These mysterious sources have yet to be determined.
Conclusion of the Paris Agreement Article 6 negotiations. Among other things, Article 6 includes a framework for a new voluntary market for carbon credits, governing both country-to-country trading as well as the establishment of an international market. It replaces the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism and has taken over a decade of negotiations to finalize (it was the last remaining element of the Paris rulebook still under negotiation). Because it was pushed through so quickly at the start of COP29, a lot of questions and concerns remain, especially around the topic of carbon removals (activities by which CO2 is captured from the air and stored on land, in the ocean, in geological formations, or in products).
On adaptation, the only agreement was text on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), giving guidance to the technical experts who are working on indicators under the UAE Framework Agreement negotiated at COP28. However, there were two main points of contention throughout the consultations: the inclusion of targets related to "means of implementation" (i.e., adaptation finance), and the role of transformational adaptation. There was no resolution on either topic and all other agenda items related to adaptation have been pushed to next year.
UAE Dialogue / Global Stocktake: major disagreements around how to take this forward; specifically Saudi Arabia and a few others who have been pushing for the removal of language relating to the “transition away” from fossil fuels that was agreed to last year. Others negotiator groups like AOSIS, which represents small island countries, pushed back strongly and in the end there was no resolution.
The mitigation work programme remains mired in disagreement and no progress on any of the outstanding issues was made at COP. As there is no agreement on the work programme’s mandate, it is unlikely that substantive progress will be made in the coming year.
The new fund for loss and damage, which was agreed to at COP28, barely registered at COP29; however it was agreed that L&D would not fall under the NCQG, which had been proposed by some developing country negotiating groups.
The larger challenge facing climate negotiators – and the UNFCCC – remains a shifting geopolitical landscape which threatens multilateralism more broadly. The climate debates are not immune nor are they uniquely affected. However, as budgets worldwide are being stretched to deal with the rising costs of inaction on climate change, along with deepening regional conflicts, inflation, and growing water and food challenges, there is strong concern about backsliding on the Paris Agreement.
Given this larger context, it will be important to see how Parties move between now and COP30, which is being hosted by Brazil and where Parties will unveil their new, supposedly stronger, climate pledges (NDCs). Look for Brazil to release their NDC early, which will send a signal for to other countries to emulate.