What is happening at COP29

COP29 - Daily updates

• 11 November - Opening Day

  We are up and running in Baku, with COP29 now underway. This morning, the COP President from last year’s talks in Dubai, Dr Sultan al-Jaber, handed the reins over and commenced proceedings. This year’s COP President is Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, and no doubt we’ll hear plenty from him over the next two weeks.

  It’s rare that the COPs start on a hopeful note, but this one has begun with particularly ominous overtones. Last week, the COP’s Chief Executive (who is also the deputy energy minister for Azerbaijan) Elnur Soltanov, was filmed promoting oil and gas deals ahead of the conference. Following Donald Trump’s re-election as US President, the hope of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC without overshoot is potentially all but extinguished. In another grim portent, the Copernicus Climate Change Service highlighted that 2024 is “virtually certain” to be the warmest on record, and will be the first calendar year to exceed 1.5ºC of warming.

  Trust in the COP Presidency is low, as summarised by Greta Thunberg this morning: “Azerbaijan’s entire economy is built on fossil fuels …. 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 1.5ºC limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement”.

  For all these reasons, even though the COPs often begin with controversy, this COP is especially unusual in its lack of enthusiasm – what is there left to say, when the COP Presidency is held by a petrostate, the world’s largest historical polluter is soon to become an active hindrance to the whole process, and temperatures are starting to reach 1.5ºC?  

  But there are two full weeks of conference to get through – and as we know from previous years, a lot will happen in that time. Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy secretary, has affirmed that in the absence of American leadership, the UK will aim to rescue the COP, and starting now there are likely to be announcements and speeches coming thick and fast. 

  Today in particular will move quickly – with lots of fast-paced speeches from world leaders as the COP gets underway. Baku is also four hours ahead of our HQ in London – so if you are based here in the UK as well, then each day throughout the COP you can expect a flurry of announcements early each morning as we catch up with the morning’s activities over in Baku.

  Don’t forget, we’re kicking off COP29 in London tonight with our collaboration with Picturehouse. If you’re London-based, you can join us at the Ritzy in Brixton from 18:30 for a screening of Common Ground (2023) followed by a panel discussion about COP, climate, and regeneration – hosted by our Director of Climate Science & Impact and joined by a number of special guests.
  

  Who has arrived at COP29 so far, and when will we hear the world leaders’ speeches?

  This year, several prominent world leaders are skipping the COP and sending their deputies instead. Papua New Guinea has pulled its ministers out of this year’s COP altogether in protest at the failure of rich countries to live up to their promises. From the USA, John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy is in attendance, in the absence of outgoing President Joe Biden. From Kenya, Musalia Mudavadi – Prime Cabinet Secretary is attending in place of President Ruto. Other notable absences are President Lula da Silva (Brazil), President Macron (France), Vladimir Putin (Russia) and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

  We’ve now seen the provisional list of speakers delivering the “national statements” – a section of the opening plenary which will see national leaders speak on behalf of their countries at the top of the COP. It looks like we’ll hear from the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer toward the end of tomorrow (Tuesday), sandwiched between Alexander De Croo (Belgium) and Viktor Orbán (Hungary).

  There will be lots of speeches to watch out for over the next couple of days, and we’re particularly anticipating those from Mia Mottley (Barbados) who routinely gives powerful speeches at the COPs, Mohamed Muizzu (Maldives) and Hilda Heine (Marshall Islands), who represent two of the countries in Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) which are disproportionately impacted by rising sea–levels in particular, and Geraldo Alckmin (Brazil), who is attending in place of President Lula.
  

• 12 November - World Leaders' Summit

  UK announces new climate target for 2035

  Today, Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK’s latest national climate target. According to the Climate Change Committee, the UK is currently not on track to meet its existing 2030 target of reducing emissions by 68% (compared to 1990).

  Nevertheless, the new goal will seek to reduce emissions by 81% (compared to 1990) by 2035, so given that the UK is already off-track for its current less ambitious goals, this will only be realised if stringent measures are implemented. Newly-updated NDCs – national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement – are not due for submission to the UNFCCC until February, and this new target is not a fully updated NDC. Though the UK is one of the first countries to commit to an updated carbon-reduction pledge. Interestingly, the Prime Minister also noted he will not commit to increases in public sector climate finance contributions at this COP – stating instead that the private sector “ought to be paying that”.

  A breakthrough for carbon markets under Article 6

  Last night, Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev stated they had “secured critical progress on one of our key priorities – Article 6”. A new COP draft decision (available here) was adopted and “takes note” of two key standards to operationalise Article 6.4 put forward by the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – one in relation to carbon credit methodologies, and the other in relation to carbon dioxide removals.

  As yet, it’s a little unclear what the full implications are likely to be in the voluntary carbon market – voluntary actors like companies and individuals were able to purchase and ‘use’ credits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol for example. What will be key as further discussions take place in contact groups (and beyond this COP) will be how the well-established voluntary carbon market integrates with a new UN-level compliance market – and how bodies like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM) align and integrate with the standards and principles being decided at the UNFCCC. There is also still uncertainty about whether what’s called ‘corresponding adjustments’ are required when voluntary actors purchase and retire carbon credits – at the moment it seems like they won’t (unless the host country or standard requires them), but we don’t yet know what will become of this, and whether it will impact the claims companies can make on the basis of carbon credits purchased on this new market – and for better or for worse, the claims that can be made by companies using credits will massively impact demand for carbon credits. Hopefully more clarity will come. 

  And whilst this is generally good news for carbon markets which drive funding to emissions avoidance, reduction and removal projects around the world, some NGOs and delegates including Tuvalu have expressed discomfort at this development, calling it a ‘backdoor deal’ with the Supervisory Body drafting new standards ahead of the COP and the Presidency pushing it through without the deliberation and discussion of Parties (countries). The decision was just left to either approve or reject this already-prepared document, rather than negotiate the shape of the document itself. Whilst it was approved, this doesn’t follow standard COP protocol, and sets a poor precedent for transparency.

  What is Article 6? 

  ‘Article 6’ is a clause in the Paris Agreement (2015) which aims to promote the use of carbon trading to allow some countries to achieve their climate targets. Since it was included in the cover text from Paris, there has been 9 years of discussion over how to ‘operationalise’ these market mechanisms. There are two main mechanisms for this: bilateral emissions trades of carbon credits called Internationally-Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (or ‘ITMOs’, captured in Article 6.2) and a UN-managed carbon market to act as a successor to the Clean Development Mechanism (captured in Article 6.4).

  Our good friends at Sylvera wrote an excellent deep-dive on Article 6 ahead of COP29, if you’d like to know more. Agreement on Article 6 was especially critical this year, as there were high hopes for consensus at COP28 last year – which ultimately failed, so the pressure was on this time to finalise Article 6 guidance this time around. 

  False start for the New Collective Quantified Goal

  One of the aims during this COP is to establish a ‘new collective quantified goal’ (NCQG) for post-2025 climate finance, and in October the co-chairs of its ad hoc Work Programme published a short document as a starter for ten, outlining what it saw as a starting point for discussion on the NCQG this year. This was rejected by Parties, driven by the G77 and China who, according to sources for Climate Home, “told [the chairs] to rip this up and start again”.

  To give you an idea of the ‘quantum’ (the financial volume) we are talking about, the G77 is proposing $1.3 trillion USD per year for the NCQG, stratified by mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group intends to allocate a minimum of $220 billion USD per year for the LDCs.

  Lack of representation for women

  As has unfortunately been the case at every COP our team can remember, it’s another year where women are dramatically underrepresented. Our friends at SHE Changes Climate have pointed out that, in the world leaders’ “family photo” taken yesterday, there are sixty-nine men and only eight women. This disparity in gender representation is not trivial: at the highest-level intergovernmental conference to address climate change, women leaders are outnumbered by a ratio of almost 1:9 – despite the fact that women are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change.

  According to official UNFCCC records published yesterday, there are over 65,000 participants in this COP and according to analysis by CarbonBrief, there’s a gender balance among Party delegates of 60% men to 40% women – still unequal, but actually the most gender-balanced COP in history. So whilst our family photo shows a massive disparity between male and female leaders, it tells us more about which demographic controls power around the world, than it does about which demographic is physically represented at the COP. CarbonBrief’s analysis is a great read if you are interested in a demographic breakdown of conference attendees over the years. By number of delegates, this COP’s largest delegations are from the host Azerbaijan, followed by Brazil (next year’s host), Turkey, the UAE (last year’s host), and China.

  Elsewhere around the COP

  Handily for those of us who aren’t personally on the ground in Baku, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) produces a regular update in its Earth Negotiations Bulletin which can provide a flavour of what’s going on ‘in the corridors’ at the conference. It seems that (understandably) a huge amount of concern is being spent on the implications of the re-election of Donald Trump in the USA. John Podesta tried to reassure delegates that a single US election cycle would not derail climate action at subnational and private sector level, but the IISD quotes one observer responding that: “He is right that the fight against climate change is bigger than one political cycle … but this is the cycle that counts to keep 1.5°C in reach.”

• 13 November - World Leaders' Summit

  Day 3 of COP29 and the second day of the World Leaders’ Summit is underway with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opening the plenary. During his speech, he stated that climate-vulnerable states have the right to be angry with rich nations for failing to deliver on climate action. This follows shortly after Brazil announced a new target to reduce emissions by 59-67% by 2035 (compared with 2005 levels) however this target has faced criticism from environmental groups for failing to align with what is necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

  Similarly, today, Prime Minister Edi Rama, of Albania has taken to the stage to question the point of these events if the biggest polluters continue as usual, he stated ‘People there eat, drink, meet and take photos together – while images of voiceless leaders play on and on and on in the background To me, this seems exactly like what happens in the real world every day. Life goes on, with its old habits, and our speeches – full of good words about fighting climate change – change nothing.”

  Global Carbon Budget Report 

  Despite pledges made last year, the burning of fossil fuels has continued to rise over the past 12 months. New data released at COP29 shows that emissions from coal, oil and gas will rise by 0.8% in 2024 despite nations pledging to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels at last year’s COP. 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures. The budget report was issued on the first day of COP29 highlighting that the ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great jeopardy and that World Leaders continue to not take their climate commitments seriously.

  A race to the top 

  25 countries have announced their climate commitments, but what we really need, is a race to the top. Many leaders have taken to the stand today to remind the world the hardships their countries continue to face in light of climate change. Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan said ‘without climate justice, there can be no real resilience… I wouldn’t want other countries to face the fight Pakistan faced in 2022’ here referencing the devastating floods that impacted over 33 million people. Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh called for a new way of life to be adopted stating ‘We have chosen a lifestyle that works against the environment’. It is estimated that by 2050, Bangladesh will lose 17% of its territory as a result of rising sea levels. Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda made a sobering statement, outlining how ‘climate change is no longer a warming, but a daily devastating reality’.

  Today, a coalition of multilateral development banks presented their collective financing target of $160 billion per year by 2023 for low and middle-income countries, aimed at supporting climate mitigation efforts. This exceeds the $100 billion per annum by 2020 set in 2009 at COP15, this target was only met for the first time in 2022.

• 14 November - Finance, Investment & Trade

  Climate Finance

  Today, negotiations will be focused on climate finance looking to replace the $100 billion per annum set in 2009 which expires at the end of the year. The Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEGCF) assessed how much money will be needed to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goals; the report covers the imperative investment developing countries need to implement effective climate mitigation efforts.  The report found that investments must increase across all economies: US$6.5 trillion is required on average per year by 2030 to meet climate targets and that any shortfall in investment before 2030 will place added pressure on the years that follow, creating a steeper and potentially more costly path to climate stability. 

  Lord Stern, Member of the House of Lords and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said this finance could come from private sector investment, about $250bn from multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, and the remainder from a mixture of sources including direct grants from developed countries to vulnerable nations, special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund and new forms of taxation, such as levies on aviation and shipping.

  On the topic of levies, there have been conversations about including cryptocurrency in a set of levies targeting high-carbon goods and services. Trump’s pro-crypto stance in the 2024 election could encourage institutional investment and increase crypto market stability. Crypto is notoriously energy-intensive – estimates say that mining Bitcoin accounted for close to 1% of global emissions last year. Charging just $0.045 per kWh for the energy would produce $5bn, according to the second report of the Global Solidarity Levies taskforce.

  More countries withdraw from COP29

  Following President Aliyev’s speech yesterday in which he accused France of suppressing climate-impacted communities in its overseas territories, France’s Ecology Minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced she has cancelled her trip to Baku, and will not be in attendance for the Nature and Biodiversity talks next week. With biodiversity already taking a back seat at this event, this is a significant loss to the negotiations.

  Additionally, Argentina’s negotiating teams have been sent home. No reasoning behind this decision has been communicated yet, however President Milei has previously called the climate crisis a “socialist lie” and has threatened to pull Argentina out of the Paris Agreement.

• 15 November - Energy/Peace, Relief & Recovery

  COP system no longer ‘fit for purpose’ 

  An open letter to the UNFCCC Secretariat has been signed by numerous titans in climate and global politics calling for a major reform to the COP process. The letter states that in its current structure, COP simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity and a fundamental overhaul is needed. The suggested measures for reform include improving the selection for COP presidencies by setting strict criteria to exclude countries that do not support the transition away from fossil fuels. Both COP28 and COP29 have been held in petrostates, with COP29 host country officials have publicly declared their support and intention to continue to grow the fossil fuel industry, describing oil and gas as a ‘gift from God’. It is reported that over 1,700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists have been granted access to COP29 with the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations having only a combined 1,033 delegates at the negotiating table. Former US President Al Gore hasn’t shied away from making his opinions on the conference known, he commented on the lack of progress that has been made regarding the transition away from fossil fuels and how it has been ”hardly even mentioned” at COP29. He stated he believes the reason for this is that ”the petrostates have too much control over the process.” The open letter also calls for the robust tracking of climate finance and improved implementation and accountability for climate targets and commitments.

  The Green Party in the UK is showing their support for this reform. Co-leader Carla Denyer MP said ”This is a timely call for reform of an international forum that has achieved a great deal but now needs to drive action in the face of the dire climate crisis the world faces” and that ”the international agreement to phase out fossil fuels is vital and urgent”.  

  Integrity Council approves three REDD+ methodologies 

  The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) board has approved three REDD+ methodologies receiving CCP (Core Carbon Principles) approval. As a quick reminder, REDD+ projects use carbon finance to fund community activities that reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation to enhance sustainable forest management. These methodologies are:

  • (ART) The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES) v2.0, TREES Crediting Level

  • (VCS) VM0048 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation v1.0
  • (VCS) Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ (JNR) Framework v4.1

  Collectively, more than 323 million credits are waiting to be verified under these three methodologies during the first crediting period which promotes a shift towards higher integrity and confidence across the market. We think this is a positive step for improving both integrity in the voluntary carbon market and confidence of companies looking to buy REDD+ credits.

  UK government announces new principles for VCM integrity – closely aligned with the ICVCM

  In more huge news for the voluntary carbon market today, the UK government has published an announcement with six ‘principles for voluntary carbon and nature market integrity”. These principles, listed below, are highly-aligned with principles we believe at Ecologi, and the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles:

  1. Use credits in addition to ambitious actions within value chains; 
  2. Use high integrity credits;
  3. Measure and disclose the planned use of credits as part of sustainability reporting;
  4. Plan ahead;
  5. Make accurate green claims using appropriate terminology;
  6. Co-operate with others to support the growth of high integrity markets

  The government also announced a fresh consultation on high-integrity voluntary carbon markets; a similar consultation was taking place last year (which our team took part in!) under the previous government, but was shelved after the election. We’re really pleased to see this announcement from Kerry McCarthy MP (UK Minister for Climate), who we’ve worked with directly as part of our participation in the SteerCo of the Carbon Markets Innovation Forum.

  This is a huge step towards harmonising governmental guidance for corporates participating in the voluntary market with the proprietary standards and integrity improvements we are already seeing on the market. You can watch McCarthy’s speech in full on Youtube.