Today, the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — AKA the COP29 — kicks off. The yearly event is one of the most important initiatives the United Nations has in place to collectively tackle the worldwide issue of climate change.
This year, the conference will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 11 to November 22 and will focus on the financial side of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
What is the COP29?
The COP29 is a yearly climate gathering which brings together world leaders from governments, businesses and civil society to discuss solutions to the worsening climate crisis.
The summit falls under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which is a treaty that was signed by nearly 200 countries in 1992 and went into effect in 1994. According to the United Nations, the main goal of the Convention was to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
The Convention also stated that the level should be achieved in a time frame which allowed ecosystems to naturally adapt to climate change to “ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner”.
At each annual climate summit, leaders and big players negotiate ways to combat climate change, reduce greenhouse gases and examine the impacts of global warming.
What are the big discussion points at COP29?
This year, the big talking point is finance. You see, dealing with global warming and its overflow effects isn’t cheap. According to the UN, trillions of dollars are needed if countries want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and protect lives and livelihoods in the process.
At the COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries decided to collectively save $100 billion USD a year ($152,114,400,000.00 AUD) specifically for climate finance. However, these targets just haven’t been met.
Last year at the COP28, leaders agreed on the creation of a “loss and damage” fund where nations with more money will cover climate change costs for poorer nations after decades of discussions.
Since then, only $700 million USD ($1,064,768,334.00 AUD) has been committed to the fund despite estimates of global costs sitting over the hundred billion mark already. In Baku, world leaders also need to clarify how we can ensure that countries with the most cashola are actively following through on their commitments.
There will also be further discussion about The Paris Agreement — a legally binding international treaty on climate change developed at the COP21 in 2015. The Paris Agreement was signed by 196 Parties and its goal is to keep the “increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels”. However, there is significant discussion about capping it at 1.5°C. To achieve this, there needs to be significant financial support from developed countries and that, my friends, is how we go full circle back to the financials.
So, this time around, there is discussion about a New Collective Quantified Goal — a part of the Paris Agreement — which will determine a new financial target for developed countries to pay rather than the overarching $100 billion USD year goal.
The elephant in the room (Donald Trump)
Just a week out of the US Presidential Election, there is a big question mark over whether soon-to-be President of the United States Donald Trump will take anything that happens at the COP29 seriously. In 2016, Trump withdrew from the climate agreement, referring to climate change as “one of the greatest scams of all time”.
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump famously encouraged the oil and gas industry to “drill, baby, drill”, as he claimed that increased domestic production of oil and gas would lead to a “large-scale decline in prices”. He also pledged to pull the US from the Paris Agreement.
However, according to US climate envoy John Podesta, the fight for a “cleaner, safer” planet will continue despite Trump’s election.
“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership, the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” he said, via The Guardian.
Meanwhile, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands Tina Stege quipped that “the Paris Agreement has survived one Trump presidency and it will survive another”.
Let’s hope she’s right.
What outcomes do we want from COP29?
One of the biggest hopes for COP29 is a quantifiable goal to help fund climate finance — especially after a year full of extreme weather and climate events. We’d also love to see more transparency when it comes to the financial obligations of developed countries and fair distribution of costs.
According to The Conversation, we’d make real progress if a new emissions target was made, plus active endorsements to move away from fossil fuels. However, this seems unlikely.
For Australia specifically, one of the biggest points of interest is whether we — with another Pacific country — will be announced as one of two host countries for the COP31 in 2026.
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