What will be on the COP 29 agenda? Here are 7 issues to watch

For the first time, countries meeting at the 28th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP 28, in Dubai called for a “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.” U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said the decision signals “the beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era. But for low- and middle-income countries, the economic transformation away from coal, oil, and gas can only materialize with adequate financing to create alternative development plans. With governments strangled by debt and ballooning costs to adapt and recover from climate impacts, establishing a new global climate finance compact for vulnerable nations will dominate this year’s climate agenda and COP 29 in Azerbaijan in November. “COP 29 is a finance COP,” Tom Evans of think-tank E3G, told Devex. Here are seven key issues to watch. 1. A new finance goal The top issue — and the most contentious — on the U.N.’s climate agenda is the agreement of a new finance goal beyond 2025 to help vulnerable countries accelerate climate action. The “new collective quantified goal” will replace the $100 billion target high-income countries committed to deliver to lower-income ones every year by 2020. According to preliminary OECD data, the $100 billion goal was likely met in 2022, two years after the deadline. The headline number for the new goal “is going to be a political negotiation at the highest level,” Katherine Browne, researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told Devex. Low- and middle-income countries want the goal to be commensurate with their needs. “We are talking about trillions of U.S. dollars,” Madeleine Diouf Sarr, head of Senegal’s climate change division and former chair of the Least Developed Countries group, told an event hosted by the International Institute for Environment and Development. The world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine demonstrated that mobilizing that scale of financing over a short time frame is “possible,” she added. Besides the amount, negotiators will need to thrash out where the money will come from, how it will be delivered, over what timeframe, and how it will be monitored. Who contributes funding will be another explosive issue. The United States and the EU have repeatedly called for expanding the donor pool, pushing China to make mandatory contributions — but Beijing hasn’t budged. 2. Accelerating ambition At COP 28, countries recognized that the world will continue to barrel toward overshooting the 1.5 degree Celsius goal if carbon-cutting action is not urgently stepped up. To ratchet up ambition, countries are expected to submit their 2035 climate plans to the U.N. by 2025 in line with limiting warming to 1.5C. This is an opportunity for countries to develop energy transition plans that move away from fossil fuels. Stiell has urged countries to start working on their new plans now. COP 29 will be a political moment to galvanize momentum for greater ambition. However, the ambition of low- and middle-income nations will depend on how much finance is available to them, and the finance package COP 29 will be able to agree. Hoping to inject momentum, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, and COP 30 host Brazil have formed a “troika” to spur international collaboration from COP 28 to COP 30, to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature rise limit within reach. In addition, governments are due to submit transparency reports on their progress in meeting their climate targets by the end of the year. 3. Making the international finance system fit for the transition To deliver on COP 28’s call to transition to clean energy and away from fossil fuels, governments need access to affordable finance packages — requiring the whole of the international financial architecture to align with building clean and resilient economies. Yet, in Dubai, Colombian environment minister María Susana Muhamad González said her country found itself “punished by the financial and economic system” with more expensive borrowing for implementing policies to wean its economy off fossil fuels. Instead, the world needs to create a financial system that rewards countries for developing energy transition plans, she warned. While political momentum has built around reforming the global financial system, observers warn that 2024 needs to bring delivery. The issue is a focus of the U.N. convened Summit of the Future in September and a key pillar of Brazil’s G20 presidency this year. Brazil created a task force for global mobilization against climate change focused on aligning the financial sector to the goals of the Paris Agreement. Another task force launched at COP 28 will look at how international taxation can help mobilize climate and development finance, with the presentation of the task force's mandate and initial assessments due at COP 29. 4. Loss and damage fund COP 28 made history when it agreed on the first day of the conference to operationalize the loss and damage fund to help climate victims recover. But high-income countries missed the Jan. 31 deadline to choose their 12 board members — delaying the new fund’s ability to get to work. Once all nominations are in, the board will hold its first meeting to decide its mode of operation. The World Bank, which has been asked to host the fund for the first four years, will need to demonstrate it can meet the hosting conditions agreed at COP 28, with a hosting agreement to be met by COP 29. 5. Adaptation finance In Dubai, countries agreed on a playbook to guide governments’ action to protect people and ecosystems from the impact of climate change. But funding to support vulnerable nations to adapt to climate change has consistently fallen short. The latest available data shows adaptation finance fell in 2021 — raising concerns over the ability of high-income nations to meet a goal to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion by 2025. Countries decided to convene a ministerial dialogue on the issue at COP 29. Low-income nations want higher-income ones to explain how they will deliver on the goal. “We are really looking for more clarity on finance around adaptation,” said Sarr of Senegal. 6. Climate action for peace As conflict rages around the world, ensuring climate action can support peace building has never been so important. At COP 28, countries and humanitarian organizations committed to help vulnerable communities facing conflict build resilience to climate change. The focus is now on turning words into action. The issue is pressing for COP 29 host Azerbaijan, which has been in conflict with Armenia. Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador in London, said COP 29 could spotlight how “mitigation of conflict and lasting peace is actually very good for the environment.” 7. Linking climate and nature A consensus is emerging on the importance of addressing the climate and nature crisis in tandem. At COP 28, countries signed a statement recognizing the need for synergies between the two processes. For Nicola Sorsby, a researcher at IIED, the next two years will see stronger efforts to align nature and climate action. This year’s U.N. Biodiversity Conference will be held in Colombia less than a month before COP 29, with efforts being made to build synergies and alignment between the two meetings. And Brazil’s decision to host COP 30 in the Amazonian city of Belém will “bring nature into the climate conversation by physically bringing the climate COP to one of the world’s largest rainforests.” Updated, Feb. 28. 2024: This piece has been updated to clarify the name of a source, Katherine Browne, who is a researcher at Stockholm Environment Institute.