The world needed to agree on how much rich nations would pay poorer nations for climate financing. After a walkout in Baku, delegates agreed on a figure that was cheered by some and derided by others.
Alexander NEMENOV / AFP
Participating world leaders and delegates pose for a family photo during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on November 12, 2024.
Before the world’s annual meeting to decide how to save the planet from catastrophic climate change, questions had been asked about the wisdom of choosing Azerbaijan to play host in November 2024. They seemed astute when, in his opening speech, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev reminded everyone that “the world’s first industrial oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan, in Baku, in 1846, not far from here.” He went on to call his country’s oil and gas reserves “gifts of God”.
The COP29 jamboree attracted 72,000 participants from 196 countries, including 80 presidents, vice presidents, and prime ministers. However, US President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump, and the leaders of Russia, China, France, Germany, and the European Commission were notably absent.
The Argentinians sent a delegation, but President Javier Milei abruptly recalled them after Trump’s election win was confirmed. Milei admires Trump, who famously withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement (Biden rejoined). With so many big absentees and sizeable delegations still negotiating key issues 30 hours after the expected close, did the conference achieve its objectives?
Ambitions and concerns
Following last year’s COP28 in Dubai, COP29 in Baku was expected to tackle the issue of a funding formula—one that developed nations could commit to combating climate issues worldwide. Some countries announced new carbon emissions targets and other climate-related initiatives.
While 72,000 attended, the leaders of Russia, China, France, Germany, the US, and the European Commission were notably absent
Britain's new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced the UK's new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). London's previous pledge was to reduce carbon emissions by 68% below 1990 levels before 2030. Its new pledge is 81% by 2035. Analysts felt this may be the UK taking on global climate leadership from the US.
Climate activists' optimism was tempered by Trump's win, which many feel will be bad news for US climate policy. Analysts assume that he will make good on his pledges and pull the US out of Paris again, and may even withdraw the US from the foundational UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the Senate ratified in 1992.
Beyond that, he is expected to remove Biden's tax breaks for clean energy, approve new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals and their associated pipelines, increase the production of oil and gas (mainly through fracking), repeal rules requiring the closure of coal-fired power stations, end subsidies for electric vehicles, cut environmental rules for motor vehicles, stall approvals for new renewable energy projects, cut the fees imposed on methane leakage from oil and gas production, open more federal lands and waters for oil and gas drilling (including the Arctic), grant more drilling licences (he says he wants to "drill, baby, drill"), and relax environmental restrictions on them.
Health and carbon markets
One area where significant headway was made at COP29 is in the integration of action on health and climate issues. Baku underscored the use of the Guiding Principles for Financing Climate and Health Solutions as a framework and showcased climate-health synergy. The World Health Organisation said this "set the stage for an era where health considerations are seamlessly integrated into climate policies".
A pedestrian walks in front of the COP29 information centre in Baku on November 10, 2024, on the eve of the UN Climate Change Conference.
A big achievement of COP29 was the breakthrough on carbon markets. Delegates agreed on provisions in Article 6.4, which allows a company in one country to make money by reducing local emissions and then selling those credits to a different company in another country. Carbon registries felt that this would help public-private cooperation and optimise climate finance.
"Countries can now accelerate climate action, leverage proven methodologies for monitoring, reporting, and verification, and mobilise private-sector finance to meet and exceed Nationally Determined Contributions," said carbon registry Verra's chief executive Mandy Rambharos. Others thought it would encourage "cowboy carbon markets," however, and not the policing that the world really needed.
Show me the money
COP29 was billed as the Finance COP, with key agenda items focusing on funding climate solutions. COP15 in Copenhagen set an annual target of $100bn as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) from developed countries. This was due in place by 2020 but was only met in 2022. It was scheduled for revision at COP29.
Few argue that the gulf between what is needed and what is forthcoming is huge. The UN's Global Policy Model has estimated that developing nations need $1.1tn for climate finance from next year, rising to $1.8tn by 2030. At current levels, there would be a $1.46tn shortfall. Negotiating this funding in Baku was expected to be difficult—and so it proved.
COP29 was billed as the Finance COP. A key agenda item was the funding of climate solutions.
COP29 was initially expected to close on Friday, 22 November, but talks continued well into the weekend. An interim offer of $250bn was dismissed as a "joke" by developing nations, prompting a dramatic walkout by some. Cedric Shuster, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States, complained of "not being heard."
Developed countries finally agreed to raise it to $300bn a year. Compared to current funding levels, this is a considerable improvement, but while some cheered, others were unimpressed, with India's delegate Leela Nandan calling it "a paltry sum." Furthermore, Trump is not expected to honour US contributions, leaving a huge funding gap.
China scored a diplomatic victory by declaring that its contributions would be included, although this is on a voluntary basis. The mixed reception to the final sum is likely to negatively impact developing countries' updates on their emissions commitments in a few months' time.
Using COP29 to do oil deals
COP29 got off to a combative start, with Aliyev railing against his country being called a petrostate by Western "fake media", discussing the "ethnic cleansing" of Azeris from their native lands, and gloating that the COP29 boycotters had failed.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev delivers a speech during the opening of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku on November 11, 2024.
He failed to mention that protests have been made against Azerbaijan's "dictatorship", holding more than 300 political prisoners (including climate activists). It is also accused of forcing more than 100,000 Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thurnberg said the Azeri economy was "completely dependent on fossil fuels" and "planning to expand fossil fuel production and exports" with "no plans to commit to real climate action". For good measure, she added that hosting a climate conference in an oppressive petrostate was "hypocrisy".
A BBC investigation seemed to back this up, finding that a top COP29 official, Elnur Soltanov, had used his conference position to broker deals for developing new Azeri oil and gas fields. Yet he was not alone. Namibia's representatives also used COP29 to promote fossil fuel opportunities in their country as part of their "vision for the future".
Assessing the conference
In the end, COP29 failed to deliver a firm action plan on moving beyond fossil fuels, simply repeating the COP28 commitment to "transition away from fossil fuels," which most see as a delaying tactic. Hope now falls on COP30, to be held in Belem, Brazil. COP31 will either be held in Turkey or Australia. The latter hopes to use it to provide greater visibility to the Pacific islands that will be most directly impacted by climate change and rising sea levels.
Developed countries finally agreed to raise their climate funding to $300bn a year—a considerable improvement compared to current funding levels
Biden said COP29 had achieved an "historic outcome," while the European Union's Climate Commissioner Wokpe Hoefstra said it marked the "start of a new era for climate finance". On the fossil fuel impasse, he said the conference offered "less than we would have liked" but was "better than we feared".
UN Secretary General António Guterres struck a similar note. "I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome on both finance and mitigation, to meet the great challenge we face," he said. "But this agreement provides a base on which to build."
Others were more forthright, if not enraged. India rejected the climate finance deal, saying it "will be left for developing countries to mobilise themselves". Arunabha Ghosh, head of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, said COP29 "failed to deliver on its core mandate". The Least Developed Countries (LDC) group on climate change said they had been "bulldozed" by Western nations and called COP29 "not just a failure, but a betrayal".
After Baku, many climate activists and developing countries were left dejected, with major challenges still to be tackled. But for those left downbeat, Biden hit a note of cautious optimism. "While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that's underway in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it. Nobody."
