Devex Newswire: Come out on top at COP29 with our 7-point guide

The 29th U.N. Climate Change Conference kicks off today in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. We’ve not only got a team on the ground but also seven things to keep in mind as you navigate COP29.

Also in today’s edition: Doom and gloom over Donald Trump’s climate agenda, and the pitfalls of doom scrolling.

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What to watch

This COP is expected to have less glitz and glamor than last year’s confab in Dubai — and fewer people, with about half the attendance — but it likely won’t be short on disagreement, drama, high hopes, and a high potential for disappointment. All this comes at a time when climate change has now touched virtually every corner of the globe.

No pressure.

A core theme will be — what else? — money. Negotiators at what’s been dubbed the “finance COP” will haggle over something known as the new collective quantified goal or NCQG. The last such target was set in 2009 when high-income rich countries said they would mobilize $100 billion in annual climate finance for low- and middle-income countries by 2020, a goal they just barely hit in 2022, my colleague Ayenat Mersie writes.

Some models suggest lower-income countries need $1 trillion in climate finance annually, but if $100 billion a year was such a heavy lift, imagine what a haul 10 times that amount would be.

So what else is on the agenda?

• Remember when lower-income countries scored a big win with the establishment of a loss and damage fund? Well, now it’s time to flesh out the fund, including how much money should go into it and who’s willing to pay.

• The next set of nationally determined contributions, or NDCs — the targets countries set for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Climate Accord — is due by February 2025. Expect them to come up in discussions.

• Food systems finally took center stage at COP28 — long overdue given that food production drives about a third of global greenhouse emissions — but money remains ridiculously scarce. Although small-scale producers grow up to 80% of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa’s food, they get less than 1% of total climate finance.

• Last year’s COP ended in a deadlock over how to move forward on carbon credits. Negotiators, especially from Africa — where many of these offset projects would likely take place — are hoping for another shot this year.

• The last two COPs have been held in some interesting locales: The United Arab Emirates and Egypt are both petro-states with dubious human rights records. Dubai did produce a tempered agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Can heavily oil-dependent Baku build on that?

• Remember that little old U.S. election? Well, it’s going to loom large over COP. The last time Donald Trump was president, he promptly yanked the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Most expect him to do so again. What does that mean for U.S. commitments — let alone those of other nations — in Baku?

Read: 7 things to watch for at COP29, from funding to food systems

+ Watch this space for all the latest COP29 coverage. Tune in next week for a special edition newsletter focused on the event.

COP trek

Remember how I mentioned we have a team on the ground in Azerbaijan? Well, it was quite the odyssey. Twenty-four hours, four airports, and three countries later, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz made it to Baku. The journey involved driving between Istanbul’s two airports — twice — a once-in-a-lifetime security line that wrapped around the entire departures floor, two new friends, and a lovely airport staffer named Melike who unequivocally saved Jesse’s sanity.

She finally made it to Baku with more than 300 other COP29-goers last night — all sporting their SDG pins and business suits with sneakers. She tells me that Baku’s international airport probably has never seen so many foreigners in one week. It would have been more efficient to do COP registration in the immigration line.

The COP venue is visible on the drive from the airport, lit up in bright green, blue, and red lights like a really big piece of candy. The city welcomes visitors with a befuddling combination of high-rise modern lime green buildings next to European-styled bottom-lit mansions and a sprinkle of desert simplicity throughout.

This morning, Jesse will be heading to the COP venue for the first time. While this COP is meant to be smaller, it is no less important than previous ones. Delegates are meant to decide on a new climate finance goal that will hold for the next 10 to 15 years. U.S. official John Podesta seems to be the headliner of today's programming. But stay tuned for our daily coverage from the development experts and officials on the ground (after a bit of travel) for the next two weeks.

+ We’re in travel mode, and Baku is not the only development destination at the moment. We’re also at the Paris Peace Forum, where discussion topics include everything from the Sustainable Development Goals to U.N. reform and artificial intelligence. Among the attendees: Mo Ibrahim, Anneliese Dodds, Alexia Latortue, Mary Beth Goodman, Jutta Urpilainen, Alexis Laffittan, Pedro Abramovay, Rebeca Grynspan, Gabriela Ramos, Patrick Achi, Rémy Rioux, Shawn Baker, and Comfort Ero.

Will Trump run hot or cold?

When the subject of climate change and Trump came up in our This Week in Global Development podcast, the consensus was clear: Don’t expect the future U.S. president to devote a lot of dollars to what he’s called a hoax. But are there caveats?

My colleague Adva Saldinger foresees cuts to climate programs at USAID and the U.S. government writ large but also says that framing will be important.

“Is it a climate agriculture program? Can you just talk about it as an agriculture program? Can you talk about it as conservation?” she said, though she cautioned: “The language around how you're defining these programs might change [but] fundamentally, I do think you'll see cuts around climate.”

But Devex Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch wondered if Trump might have at least a slight change of heart. He pointed out that Trump’s best bro Elon Musk “now has potentially a very important influence in the administration. He's certainly not a climate skeptic, and he's got a lot of business interests that are tied up with climate so, you know, Trump maybe has a Nixon-goes-to-China kind of opportunity here.”

Likewise, President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act — which devotes hundreds of billions to promoting clean energy projects — has some Republican supporters whose states have benefited from the law. Will this keep Trump from gutting it? “He's learned to live with Obamacare, so maybe he can live with the Inflation Reduction Act,” Colum suggested.

Adva and Colum joined Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar to break down what a second Trump presidency might mean for a range of development priorities, from global health and humanitarian aid to the World Bank and United Nations. Listen to the episode.

+ Want to learn more about the implications of a second Trump administration for U.S. foreign aid? Join us tomorrow, Nov. 12, for a roundtable with experts who have direct experience of politics and aid in the U.S. Save your spot now. 

This event is exclusively for Devex Pro members. Not a Pro member yet? Start your 15-day free trial.

A question of money

In terms of climate finance, it’s not just about quantity, but quality, Angela Churie Kallhauge of the Environmental Defense Fund argues in an opinion piece for Devex. Sure, more money is great — but what form that money takes can be just as important.

“For many low- and middle-income nations, accessing climate finance means taking on debt,” she writes, noting that about 60% of low-income countries already face some level of debt distress. 

Concessional financing, in the form of grants or low-interest loans, can lighten the debt load, but it’s underused. “According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, just 41% of loans from multilateral climate funds are concessional, and only 23% of multilateral development bank loans meet this standard,” Kallhauge writes.

Other solutions? Simplifying the bureaucratic hurdles to accessing finance and measuring success by real-life outcomes as opposed to dollars distributed.

“We need high-quality finance that reduces debt risks, accelerates access to funds, and ensures real-world climate impact,” she writes.

Opinion: At COP29 climate finance negotiations, a focus on quality matters

A novel idea

Whether it’s the climate crisis, conflict around the world, or certain election results, the news can feel overwhelming and hopeless. Today’s world of scrolling headlines at supersonic speeds doesn’t help.

Adrienne Ghaly of the University of Virginia advises her students to trade in scrolling for substance by … reading books.

“If you're doom scrolling, or just looking through social media, you might look at something for 2.5 seconds. If you read an article, maybe three to five minutes. But, with a novel, you are not just engaging with the humanitarian crisis and characters in it — you're doing it over and over again, across hours, days, or even weeks,” she said at Devex World 2024.

“What we found was that students were really, really engaged with humanitarian crises through these characters and through these complex situations,” she added. And, crucially, because that link was formed “before they become victims of crisis,” they “really care about them when they are in some kind of crisis.”

Read: Trade in the doom scrolling for novels to get full humanitarian picture 

In other news

Taliban officials will attend COP29 for the first time since their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. [AP News]

Haiti’s transitional council fired interim Prime Minister Garry Conille. He will be replaced by Alix Didier Fils-Aime. [Reuters]

An Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp sheltering displaced Palestinians has killed at least 32 people, including 13 children. [Al Jazeera]

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