The world climate conference COP29 begins on November 11, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Delegates from almost 200 countries will meet again to discuss climate protection, emissions targets and necessary measures for two weeks. The focus is on the inadequate national reduction targets (NDC) and financial aid for poorer countries. But the chances of major progress are rather slim.
Floods, storms, fires and droughts: Weather extremes will continue to worsen worldwide in 2024 – a clear warning sign that the global climate is becoming increasingly out of balance. And there are also signs of a new sad record in global mean temperatures: for the first time, annual average warming could exceed 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. This value was specified in the Paris Climate Agreement as a limit beyond which warming was not intended to rise.
National climate protection goals are not enough
Despite the clearly advancing climate change, there has been little progress in climate protection: CO2 emissions are still rising worldwide and the countries’ climate protection goals are by no means sufficient to stop or sufficiently slow down climate change, as the current “Emissions Gap Report” at the end of October showed ” the UN environmental organization UNEP showed. According to this, global warming will reach 2.6 degrees even if all signatory states to the Framework Convention on Climate Change implement their officially submitted unconditional and conditional national voluntary commitments. If only the unconditional measures and goals that are not linked to certain conditions are implemented, it would be 2.8 degrees warming.
“We need a global mobilization on a scale and pace never seen before,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “And we have to start immediately or the 1.5 degree target is dead and the two degree target is also in intensive care. I ask all nations: please no more hot air.” According to UNEP calculations, global CO2 emissions would have to fall by 42 percent by 2030 compared to 2019 and by 60 percent by 2035 – only then would the 1.5 degree target be achievable, at least in the long term. Even if, according to the report, this goal could at least be technically achievable, it seems rather utopian given the global political situation and the continuing rise in CO2 emissions. In order to limit warming to at least two degrees, emissions reductions of 28 percent by 2030 and 37 percent by 2035 would be necessary – but so far the NDCs are far away from this.
The core topics of the climate summit
This “emissions gap” will also be the focus of the COP29 climate summit in Baku. The almost 200 signatory states to the Framework Convention on Climate Change will continue to negotiate what the next round of national voluntary commitments will look like and what requirements should apply. According to the Paris Climate Agreement, the NDCs should be reviewed and tightened at regular intervals. This tightening is due by February 2025 at the latest. “The conference should call on all countries not only to set goals for 2035 in their NDCs, but also to update and significantly strengthen their goals and measures for the period up to 2030,” comments Wolfgang Obergassel from Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. In addition, the next NDCs should include concrete timelines, measures and sector-specific reduction targets and also set the zero emissions target in the long term.
A second core topic at the World Climate Conference is the financing of climate protection and adaptation in poorer countries. “The countries of the Global South have made it very clear that they need significant financial support in order to be able to contribute to achieving their goals and at the same time to better protect themselves against the consequences of climate change,” explains Obergassel. No agreement could be reached at the last climate conference COP28, so the topic was postponed to this year’s COP29. Specifically, there are two key questions: How much money is needed? And from what sources should the necessary funds come? Previously there was the “Green Climate Fund”, which was supposed to be filled with 100 billion US dollars annually by the rich industrialized countries.
However, recent estimates suggest that developing countries will need around $1 trillion per year by 2030. The inadequate and controversial fund should therefore be replaced by a new financial regulation, the so-called New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). This is intended to put international climate financing on a broader basis. What this looks like must now be discussed in Baku. There is a demand from the “classic” industrialized countries that the rich countries of the global south should also pay in in the future. Negotiations are also underway to determine to what extent and in what form private money and new sources of financing – such as international taxes or a reform of the multilateral development banks – can be used. The question of which measures and countries should receive the money as loans and/or grants is also controversial.
Source: UN Environment Program (UNEP), Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy