Since I last blogged, I have been in the Blue Zone of COP29. Initially all of the country pavilions, meeting rooms, and plenaries felt overwhelming. I enjoyed meeting representatives from each country and learning about the issues they were dealing with and the strategies they were employing to combat these issues. It was particularly eye opening to hear people from a variety of industries present on new innovations in their space. I enjoyed attending this presentation on international aviation’s role in climate change, and I learned about the different low carbon aviation fuel alternatives being tested and the need for greater investment in sustainable fuel research and development. It was inspiring to hear how hopeful industry leaders were on progress towards net zero through a restructuring of aviation business models.
Another compelling industry presentation was one on the need for resiliency in coastal tourism. Coastal tourism accounts for nearly 50% of all tourism spending in the world. Leaders highlighted the necessity of educational campaigns to help make coastal tourism more sustainable from the ground up, in a way that creates more economic opportunity for coastal communities.
One of the biggest surprises for me at this conference was the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists. Out of the roughly 70,000 attendees, there were around 1,700 representatives from the fossil fuel industries. The greenwashing and selective disclosure at these pavilions felt apparent. I spoke with some representatives who were unable to answer questions on their future plans of reducing non-renewable energy usage or verify some of their larger environmental initiative claims.
The actual UN negotiations were another unusual part of this conference. Just a day after hearing testimonials from people whose entire villages were displaced by floods, it felt impersonal to hear delegates debate over semantics and bracket placements. I know minor language changes have a large impact on the execution of climate policy, but the whole process felt incredibly detached from the gravity of the climate crisis.
Overall attending COP29 was an incredibly valuable experience. I learned a lot and met amazing people, but it didn’t make me much more optimistic about the future. COP concluded with a measly $300 billion pledged by 2035 to developing countries, which fell short of the $1.3 trillion deemed necessary by experts. The final agreement also lacked specificity regarding individual countries’ contributions and the balance between grants and loans, which raised further questions about its enforceability. There was an approved groundwork from Article 6 of the Paris Agreement for a UN-backed global carbon market which has garnered criticism for being a greenwashed attempt to minimize the need for direct emissions reductions. All this being said, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, and I hope more progress is made at COP30 in Brazil next year.
Faiz Farooqui is a UConn@COP Fellow and Computer Science major in the College of Engineering.