COP29 Baku Climate Change Conference

UN Climate Change Conference Baku, Azerbaijan
11-22 November 2024

COP29: What are the key issues on the table?
The UN Climate Change Conference COP29 gets underway on Monday [11 November] in Baku, Azerbaijan.
With climate impacts inflicting growing human and economic costs in every country, every COP is a vital global moment that must deliver major progress, and COP29 is no exception.
Ambitious outcomes in Baku are vital, because unless all countries can cut emissions and build more resilience into global supply chains, no economy – including the G20 – will survive unchecked global heating, and no household will be spared its severe inflationary impacts.
See  UN Climate Change Quarterly Update to learn more about the key issues on the table at COP29, and the wide-ranging preparatory work taking place so governments can arrive in Baku with concrete outcomes within reach.
With climate impacts inflicting growing human and economic costs in every country, every COP is a vital global moment that must deliver major progress, and COP29 is no exception.
COP29 must be an enabling COP, delivering concrete outcomes to translate the pledges made in last year’s historic UAE Consensus into real-world, real-economy results. Finance is key among the outcomes needed this year, and it is entirely in every nation’s interest to ensure COP29 delivers an ambitious new climate finance goal. We can only prevent the climate crisis from decimating lives and livelihoods in every economy if every country has the means to take stronger climate actions, slashing emissions and building resilience in communities, infrastructure and supply chains.
COP29 must also deliver an ambitious set of outcomes on Article 6, and it must elevate the work every government is doing on the all-important policy instruments due under the Paris Agreement. By the end of this year: Biennial Transparency reports. By next year: National Adaptation Plans and much bolder new Nationally Determined Contributions. …
Simon Stiell
Executive Secretary UN Climate Change

13 November
‘No sign’ of promised fossil fuel transition as emissions hit new high
Despite nations’ pledges at Cop28 a year ago, the burning of coal, oil and gas continued to rise in 2024
The new data, released at the UN Cop29 climate conference, indicates that the planet-heating emissions from coal, oil and gas will rise by 0.8% in 2024. In stark contrast, emissions have to fall by 43% by 2030 for the world to have any chance of keeping to the 1.5C temperature target and limiting “increasingly dramatic” climate impacts on people around the globe.
Cop29 will focus on mobilising the trillion dollars a year needed for developing nations to curb their emissions as they improve the lives of their citizens and to protect them against the now inevitable climate chaos to come. The summit also aims to increase the ambition of the next round of countries’ emission-cutting pledges, due in February.

12 November
Climate summit highlights the ‘leadership of islands’ (audio)
(The World) The list of “no shows” at the two-week COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan is long: China, the US, Germany, Japan, Australia, France, Brazil and Mexico are all sitting this one out. Someone who did show up, though, is Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. In conversation with The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler, she discusses how the countries most vulnerable to climate change are trying to fill the leadership vacuum.
Development lenders set $120-billion climate finance goal for poorer countries
By Simon Jessop, Virginia Furness and Karin Strohecker
New figure includes $42 billion for extreme weather adaptation
Private sector expected to contribute over $65 billion annual
Multilateral banks say shareholders’ commitments crucial for scaling up efforts
(Reuters) – The world’s top multilateral banks pledged to ramp up climate finance to low- and middle-income countries to $120 billion a year by 2030 as part of efforts at global talks in Azerbaijan on Tuesday to agree an ambitious annual target.
COP29: What is the latest science on climate change?
By Gloria Dickie
(Reuters) – This year’s U.N. climate summit – COP29 – is being held during yet another record-breaking year of higher global temperatures, adding pressure to negotiations aimed at curbing climate change.
The last global scientific consensus on climate change was released in 2021 through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, however scientists say that evidence shows global warming and its impacts are unfolding faster than expected.
The world may already have hit 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 F) of warming above the average pre-industrial temperature – a critical threshold beyond which it is at risk of irreversible and extreme climate change, scientists say.
A group of researchers made the suggestion in a study released on Monday based on an analysis of 2,000 years of atmospheric gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores that extends the understanding of pre-industrial temperature trends.
Scientists have typically measured today’s temperatures against a baseline temperature average for 1850-1900. By that measure, the world is now at nearly 1.3 C (2.4 F) of warming.
But the new data suggests a longer pre-industrial baseline, based on temperature data spanning the year 13 to 1700, the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience said.
Either way, 2024 is certain to be the warmest year on record. …

11 November
COP29 begins today. On the table this year: global uncertainty and a looming Trump presidency
Uncertainty looms large ahead of the UN climate conference
(CBC) Uncertainty and corruption are already looming over this year’s climate negotiations, as delegates descend on oil-rich Baku to start talks Monday.
Azerbaijan, known as the land of fire for its oil-producing prowess, is the third petro-state in a row to host annual talks of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29, which look to keep warming to well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, with an aim of limiting warming to 1.5 C. Nearly 200 countries agreed to the threshold in 2015’s Paris Agreement.
“There’s a lot at stake for COP29,” says Catherine Abreu, director at the International Climate Politics Hub. “Whether we are able to leave Baku, Azerbaijan, with a successful outcome is going to rely a lot on countries showing leadership and operating in these conversations in good faith.”
The crowning achievement at last year’s COP28 in Dubai was a global consensus on the need to “transition away from fossil fuels.”
But already, BBC News has exposed senior members of the COP29 team using the conference to arrange potential deals for fossil fuel expansion. And the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. has created uncertainty among climate groups, familiar with the former president’s disdain for climate-related action.

A ‘Cop of peace’? How can authoritarian, human rights-trashing Azerbaijan possibly host that?
Greta Thunberg
The ‘theme’ chosen for Cop29 must be some kind of dark joke. This summit, like those before it, is a mere act of greenwashing
(The Guardian) Genocides, ecocides, famines, wars, colonialism, rising inequalities and an escalating climate collapse are all interconnected crises that reinforce each other and lead to unimaginable suffering. While humanitarian crises are unfolding in Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Balochistan, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh, and many, many other places, humanity is also breaching the 1.5C greenhouse gas emissions limit, with no signs of real reductions in sight. Instead, the opposite is taking place – last year, global emissions reached an all-time high. Heat records have been shattered, and this year is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year ever recorded, with unprecedented extreme weather events pushing the planet further into uncharted territory. The destabilisation of the biosphere and the natural ecosystems we depend on to survive is leading to untold human suffering and further accelerating the mass extinction of flora and fauna.
Azerbaijan’s entire economy is built on fossil fuels, with the state-owned oil company Socar’s oil and gas exports accounting for close to 90% of the country’s exports. Despite what it might claim, Azerbaijan has no ambition to take climate action. It is planning to expand fossil fuel production, which is completely incompatible with the 1.5C limit and the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change.

10 November
Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2024: Inclusive climate action needed to achieve Paris goals
Climate action by non-Party stakeholders, including businesses, investors, sub-national actors and civil society, is driving progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, and their engagement is more crucial than ever, as highlighted in the 2024 Yearbook of Global Climate Action launched today.
“There can be no comprehensive approach without the involvement of the entire economy and the whole of our societies. And that means we need Parties and non-Party stakeholders to work together, to join efforts, communicating on best ways forward, systematically,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “This is why the Marrakech Partnership is so important, why the examples in this Yearbook are so fundamental, and why they must be scaled up.”

9 November
We can prepare for hurricanes, heatwaves and flooding – but only if we are bold at Cop29
Ban Ki-moon
The right funding now can protect the frontlines of the climate crisis from the worst effects of extreme weather events
(The Guardian) As we approach Cop29 in Baku, world leaders are due to set a new climate finance [Introduction to Climate Finance] goal – a sum set aside to help poor countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. Their negotiations take place against a backdrop of increasingly severe weather events. This year alone, we have witnessed deadly heatwaves across north Africa, Mexico, India and Saudi Arabia; a historic drought across southern Africa; catastrophic wildfires in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands; record-breaking hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US; and plenty more. The climate emergency knows no borders and spares no one.
These events serve as stark reminders of the pressing need for world leaders and all of us to protect vulnerable communities on the frontline of the climate crisis. For many developing countries, particularly in Africa, the cost of climate impacts is staggering. African nations are losing up to 5% of their GDP because of climate extremes, while some are diverting as much as 9% of their national budgets to overcome the fallout from them. The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization estimates that Africa south of the Sahara alone will need $30bn-$50bn annually over the next decade just to meet the costs of protecting communities facing unprecedented climate-related disasters. We will not be able to reduce poverty, eliminate hunger and build a prosperous and resilient global community without addressing the climate crisis.

Why Trump’s 2nd withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will be different
The president-elect could act faster this time.
(Politico) Trump’s vow to pull out would once again leave the United States as one of the only countries not to be a party to the 2015 pact, in which nearly 200 governments have made non-binding pledges to reduce their planet-warming pollution. His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit that begins on Monday in Azerbaijan, where the U.S. and other countries will hash out details related to phasing down fossil fuels and providing climate aid to poorer nations.

7-8 November
International Intrigue: Four reasons next week’s COP29 might be meh
1. A slim attendee list
If there’s one thing world leaders love, it’s hanging out with world leaders. Their teams quietly compare calendars throughout the year: the more leaders commit to an event, the more valuable it is for other leaders to attend, and the more costly it is to miss it.
But many key world leaders are skipping this year’s summit: Joe Biden is preparing to hand the Oval Office keys back to Donald Trump, Ursula von der Leyen is still trying to get her new team approved back in Brussels, and Lula da Silva is still recovering from a nasty fall. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping is focused on reviving his sputtering economy, Putin is focused on invading his neighbour, and Scholz is focused on his own political survival. Even the largest Pacific Island nation and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, Papua New Guinea, is skipping this summit, calling it “a total waste of time”.
2. Some geopolitical drama
This year’s COP host is Azerbaijan, which launched a major military offensive to seize the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, sending the enclave’s ethnic Armenian population fleeing their homes.
While the turf was widely recognised as Azerbaijan’s, the sudden and unilateral move was still widely condemned, including by France, home to Europe’s largest Armenian population. So Macron and his Azerbaijani counterpart (Aliyev) have been bickering since, with Paris accusing Baku of fanning unrest in the French territory of New Caledonia.
So now, as a sign of goodwill (but also to mess with Macron) Azerbaijan has offered to foot the bill for Pacific Island nations (including French ones) to attend this COP. So it’ll use the summit to throw more shade Macron’s way and boost its own standing, which Baku really needs because…
3. Azerbaijan’s vibes
Azerbaijan is known for many things like its never-extinguishing natural fire, but not its civil liberties. And local authorities have cracked down on any off-script voices lately, to prevent them from reaching a global audience during Baku’s big summit.
4. Shifting politics back home
Last year, the world held its breath to see whether countries would commit to an unprecedented ‘phase-out’ of fossil fuels. We got a weaker ‘transition away’ instead, which was itself still a big deal, but also a straw in the wind: this stuff is getting harder. Voters have been punishing governments everywhere lately, fuming at high inflation, cost of living pressures, plus housing affordability, all while wars rage or threaten to rage. …governments are struggling to prioritise any longer-term response.
Which is again why you might not’ve heard much about this year’s COP29.

Trump Stranglehold Adds to Growing Doubts at Climate Talks
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
Nearly 200 nations will soon gather for the annual COP29 summit, where efforts to increase funding for poor countries and slash emissions will run against the reality of a hostile American president.
(Bloomberg) The election of Donald Trump — and his vow to once again undertake a US retreat from international climate diplomacy — poses a decisive threat to the fight against global warming, as the window for meaningful action closes. …
A fresh exodus by the world’s largest economy and second-biggest emitter, reprising a move made during Trump’s first term, could have longer-lasting repercussions this time. Trump is now in position to undermine the already-eroding faith in the climate cooperation that has shaped the past decade. His return promises to destabilize the delicate diplomacy that has galvanized worldwide efforts to slash planet-warming pollution and deploy zero-emission power. Without American engagement, efforts to cut emissions could stall in the decade ahead that’s seen as crucial for keeping Earth’s rising temperatures in check.
Trump’s victory is “an alarming escalation of climate risk for the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “By stepping back from climate commitments, Trump’s actions threaten to unravel trust in a global system already strained by the indifference and inaction of wealthy nations.”
Diplomats are already wrestling with the consequences. Although Trump won’t be sworn in for two months, his election turns the US delegation to COP29 into lame ducks with diminished credibility and less leverage. It will severely complicate negotiations over how much public finance rich countries can deliver to developing nations on the front lines of climate change, a key aim of discussions at this year’s summit. It’s also likely to constrain countries’ ambitions in setting new carbon-cutting pledges due next February.