Welcome to the second week of the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP29. Maybe you spent the weekend going to sessions and devouring commentary. Maybe you spent it visiting a Zoroastrian temple in Baku, Azerbaijan. Either way, here’s an overview of what happened last week — including some steps forward on Saturday — before you dive into the next.
Also in today’s edition: Ups and downs of the controversial Article 6 agreement, and Azerbaijan’s president says oil and gas are a “gift of God.”
+ We’re still on the ground to bring you another week of daily news. Keep an eye on our reporters’ notebook and This Week in Global Development podcast for updates, interviews, and behind-the-scenes commentary that you never knew you needed — but you definitely do!
After a week of discussions that took far longer than they should have, observers said that negotiators on the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG, are finally starting to talk to each other. (Could we be one day closer to dropping the “N”?!) The NCQG is the new global climate finance target that will replace the current $100 billion annual figure, and is likely to be the goal for the next 10-15 years.
“It’s late to get where we need to be,” says Debbie Hillier, UNFCCC policy lead at Mercy Corps, adding that negotiators have mainly been discussing technicalities of the document such as access, transparency, and debt. “This should have been happening three, four days ago. The pace is frustratingly slow.”
Week 1 is meant to finalize as much as possible in the big negotiations so that Week 2 can focus exclusively on the most complicated issues, like agreeing to a figure for the annual financial contribution. But as we enter Week 2, all the big issues are still in play.
“We’ve got a text that’s 25 pages now. It’s better, it’s clearer, it’s shorter. But there are still lots of options. Lots of things in square brackets,” Hillier says. In fact, Carbon Brief’s interactive tracker found 415 brackets! The brackets indicate that parties have not agreed to the text.
So far, very few details have been agreed. Grant equivalence, which would change how climate finance is counted, is in the document, but is unlikely to be agreed on. Delegates are also discussing creating subgoals for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage funding. “I am not very hopeful that would stay in,” says Hillier.
The United Kingdom is taking a leadership position, helping to steer the conversation, take notes, and handle feedback. “They are trying to be a bridge builder,” says Hillier.
The good news is that how the funding will be accessed by developing countries — a conversation topic largely absent from discussions on the sidelines — is part of these conversations.
China, which doesn’t contribute to the NCQG because it is still classified as a developing country, announced that it had provided more than $20 billion in climate finance since 2016. A big part of this week’s discussions will be about how these donating-but-nondonor countries play a role in meeting the goal.
Spotted in the Blue Zone: Nicholas Stern and Amar Bhattacharya huddled over laptops on the day they launched their climate finance needs estimate. The two economists joined colleague Vera Songwe, co-chair of the Independent High-Level Expert Panel on Climate Finance (say that three times fast), which published the much-awaited figure for how much money lower-income countries need for the climate transition. Their answer? A cool $1 trillion per year. Expect that number to play a big anchoring role as COP negotiators land on a final number for the NCQG.
Background reading:
• COP29 is the ‘finance COP.’ Here's what that means (Pro)
• Lessons from the $100B target can shape the next climate finance goal (Pro)
• At COP29 climate finance negotiations, a focus on quality matters
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Very few discussions have taken place so far on the supporting acts of the NCQG: namely, funding for loss and damage, and adaptation.
The loss and damage fund, which was agreed on in 2022 to help countries respond to the effects of climate change, now has its first leader: Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, a Senegalese-American with a financial development background. Formal agreements were signed last week to allow the fund to start receiving money, but delegates are largely focused on the NCQG, pulling the limelight away from the loss and damage fund.
The Adaptation Fund, a 23-year-old perpetually underfunded institution with a $300 million annual goal, only secured around $61 million from donor countries this week. Least developed countries, or LDCs, and small island developing states, or SIDS, are particularly concerned about adaptation funding.
“Adaptation right now is critical. There will come a point where we can't adapt anymore,” says Tagaloa Cooper of the Climate Change Resilience program at SPREP.
Listen: At COP29, leaders push for adaptation funding amid rising climate risks
The Azerbaijani presidency pushed forward an early win at the start of COP29, ushering in an agreement on Article 6, which will govern carbon markets. Negotiators say this was a success — setting standards for a centralized carbon trading market under the U.N. — but activists say that the rules are not stringent enough, allowing for a dangerously unregulated market that could cause more havoc than no market at all.
Climate justice groups said that the market will only benefit big polluters and rich countries, while leaving out community voices and adequate protections to make sure that the trading is transparent and credible.
Related: Are carbon markets a viable development finance option for Africa?
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has had enough of the “petrostate” critique. In his opening speech on Tuesday, he raged against the accusations, saying that Azerbaijan accounts for less than 1% of global oil and gas production and that the Western governments criticizing the country are also the ones purchasing its oil and gas. Aliyev said that Azerbaijan has faced a “campaign of slander and blackmail” among those who have called to boycott the summit.
Opining that countries should be judged by criteria such as levels of unemployment and poverty rather than natural resources, Aliyev said oil and gas are “a gift of God.”
World leaders — including those from the United States — seem relatively unperturbed by how the U.S. election outcome will impact climate actions.
“While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate action on the back burner, work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” John Podesta, senior adviser to the U.S. president on international climate policy, said during a press briefing. He continued with a list of climate disasters that happened over the last year. “None of this is a hoax,” he added, a nod to Trump’s past skepticism of climate change.
At a press lunch on Saturday, U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, didn’t waste anyone’s time pretending that a Trump administration would address climate change.
“Our point here is that effective January, the United States government will be defecting from a position of responsibility,” said Whitehouse.
“But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be considerable activity coming out of the United States,” he added, mentioning the formation of a blue states coalition that will try to “fill the gap that President Trump is going to leave.” This could mean direct communication between world leaders and state leaders.
My colleague on the ground, Kate Warren, has heard rumors since COP28 about COP30 possibly being split between Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, due to the designated host city Belém's limited infrastructure. However, organizers assured her that the event will remain in Belém to maintain a concentrated gathering.
The challenge is accommodating the expected tens of thousands of attendees in a city with only 10,000 hotel rooms. So how will they do it? Three new hotels, “high-quality” temporary building structures, perhaps some homestays, and maybe even cruise ships. Book soon!
My colleague Ayenat Mersie landed in Baku yesterday to bring you even more coverage of the conference. You can expect more news of the food and agriculture sector and more observations in our daily reporters’ notebook.
Reach out via jesse.chaselubitz@devex.com or ayenat.mersie@devex.com if you have any thoughts, questions, or want to get in touch on the ground.
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