New levels of global uncertainty add to a tenser-than-usual environment at COP29, the annual UN Climate Conference being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The imminent return to the White House of Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord in his first term and plans to dismantle the efforts of the Biden administration to accelerate development and growth of sources of renewable energy, plans a lot about the meeting.
But global fossil fuel emissions also reached a record high in 2024, instead of falling as predicted, this is shaping up to be the first year in which the average global temperature is likely to exceed 1.5°C, with weather events induced by climate change that provide interviews about the future as a key goal seems increasingly difficult to keep annual warming below this temperature to avoid the worst of global warming.
Leaders of nations attending COP-29 offered contrasting views on reducing emissions, with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev seen as a controversial choice to lead the event, both by the autocratic regime of their country as for their unapologetic continued production of fossil fuels. He has dubbed oil and gas a “gift from God.”
Global fossil fuel lobbyists and industry members comprise more than 17,000 of the estimated 70,000 live and virtual delegates this year, according to an analysis by the environmental advocacy coalition Kick Big Polluters Out, more from the delegations of most of the attending countries.
“The sound you hear is the clock,” countered UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who has consistently called for climate action at COP meetings, in remarks at the opening session. “We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and time is not on our side,” he said.
Given the pledges nations made at last year’s COP 28 conference to move away from fossil fuels and increase adaptation and renewables efforts, Guterres made the case for business to continue in that direction. “The economic imperative is clearer and more compelling with every renewable energy launch, every innovation and every drop in prices,” he said. “Last year, and for the first time, the amount invested in grids and renewables exceeded the amount invested in fossil fuels. And almost everywhere, solar and wind are the cheapest sources of electricity. So that doubling fossil fuels is absurd. The clean energy revolution is here. No group, no company, no government can stop it.”
Funding is the most important thing this year, according to several sources attending the meetings, which conclude on November 22.
“This is the financial COP,” said Melanie Robinson, global director of climate, economics and finance at the World Resources Institute, in a press call. “We are here primarily to agree on the amount of external finance available for developing countries to adapt to climate change and embark on low-carbon development pathways” through collective and quantified targets on climate finance.
The news funding targets, once negotiated, will represent the first such update since 2009, when developed nations pledged $100 billion annually by 2020 for emissions reduction and resilience efforts in developing countries. development, which bear disproportionate impacts of climate change.
“The big question will be, how many times bigger than $100 billion … can that number go?” adds Robinson.
Country publishing goals
With countries set to publish updated emissions reduction and climate adaptation targets, called Nationally Determined Contributions, before a February deadline, Brazil, host of next year’s COP, will publish their updated goals on November 13. It aims for a reduction of 59% to 67% of 2005 levels by 2035, or between 850 and 1.05 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Achieving the target’s top figure “could put Brazil on a path to reach net zero by 2050,” Karen Silverwood-Cope, climate director at Brazil’s World Resources Institute, said in a statement. Sh adds that “getting there requires bold national policies to stop deforestation and promote restoration, decarbonize its energy sector and foster green industry.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on 12 November a minimum emissions reduction target of 81% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels.
Nationally Determined Contributions “have the potential to put countries on the path to net zero … but there will have to be policies to support that,” said David Waskow, director of the Action Institute International Climate.
US announces final methane emissions rule
As COP-29 progressed, the US Environmental Protection Agency published a final rule allowing it to apply a waste emissions fee for methane emissions from petroleum facilities and gas where they exceed 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Tariffs start at $900 per metric ton and rise to $1,500 per metric ton in 2026. The rule, authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, is intended to incentivize reductions. The EPA estimates that implementation will reduce 1.2 million metric tons of methane, or 34 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, by 2035 and generate up to $2 billion in cumulative climate benefits.
The United States and the European Union launched at COP26 in 2021 the Global Methane Pledge: to collectively reduce global levels of methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. The pledge now has 158 participating countries. But whether the EPA rule will survive under Lee Zeldin, the president-elect’s choice to lead the agency, is unclear, with Trump saying his nominee would “ensure fair and speedy deregulatory decisions.”
Business groups at the meetings made the economic case for environmental action. Climate-related extreme weather events between 2014 and 2023 have caused more than $2 trillion in economic losses in 2023 dollars, according to a report prepared by consulting firm Oxera for the International Chamber of Commerce. It analyzed more than 4,000 events to estimate the costs of physical damage and reconstruction, as well as the impact of lost economic contributions from deaths and injuries.
The report says the $2 trillion figure is an underestimate of the true cost, which the group describes as “likely orders of magnitude higher,” which takes into account data gaps in less developed countries and metrics that the report does not cover. “The economic case for mitigating the costs of climate-driven extreme weather events is clear,” the analysis states, adding that measures can also create economic opportunities.
Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce, a member of the international group, launched its own message ahead of COP-29 that the US should not withdraw from the Paris agreement again. “The House believes it is critical that the U.S. government actively participate in the United Nations process to demonstrate continued leadership on an issue of such important global importance and to ensure that the business community is part of the discussion,” said Martin Durbin, Speaker of the House. Global Energy Institute.