COP29 fallout
The downside and upside of world progress on climate breakdown this month
CLIMATE CHANGE
Henry Collin
11/15/20241 min read
It's a busy week in the media following the end of COP29 at the weekend. Depending on what you read, and where, the prognosis is pretty gloomy. The commitments made by developing countries to the climate finance situation are undeniably woeful in their own right.
And the lack of progress on the key business of reducing emissions appeared to capture very little momentum, perhaps unsurprisingly for a conference hosted by an oil state. However behind the glass-half-empty fallout there are some positive developments.
Admittedly not necessarily related to the achievements or lack of by the COP delegates, which tends to veil what is happening in the real world. The bad news of course is that carbon emissions are still rising, up by around 1.2% in 2023 on the previous year, and still to plateau never mind start the required steep reductions needed to keep the Paris 1.5 commitment alive. There is also huge hesitation about the impacts of a US presidency led by Trump from January.
But there are positives, particularly around the scale and pace of installation of renewable energy generation globally (nearly 500GW in the last year). And huge increases in penetration of electric vehicles. There is maybe a growing sense of momentum building across the world that can't be dispelled by changes in political administration or fossil fuel lobbyists. But much more is needed - 2025 is critical in that all IPCC participants will need to submit updated NDCs - these need to be ambitious and they need to be followed through with implementation. Politicians need to heed the concerns of their populace - 80% of people across the world want more concerted climate action according to the latest UNDP survey.
Despite the relatively paltry offer on global climate finance achieved in Baku, it is at least a starting point and a commitment to build on. There is a much to build and much for us all to contribute.
World Leaders Climate Action Summit at COP29. Courtesy of the President of Azerbaijan. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.