This year is the 29th iteration of the Conference of Parties (COP) which is an international and annual conference held by the United Nations (UN) around climate action and decision-making. This year it is hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan. I have the delight to attend with the UConn@COP cohort, to become my second COP I have been able to attend, this time as the Sustainability Coordinator for Regional Campuses and Environmental Justice at the Office of Sustainability.
For my first two days at the Conference, I only had access to the Green Zone due to variation in badge allocation for many universities in the Global North. In previous years, our delegates had five days of Blue badge access for the duration of our time in the COP host country, but this year we only have 3-4 days for each student and faculty/staff delegate. The Green Zone is open to the public by securing free tickets two days in advance. While the Green Zone can vary every year depending on how the host country organizes the Conference, this year the Green Zone consisted of the Extreme Hangout Zone, with panels, speakers, and performances throughout the day, and several pavilions representing more industry and business.
The Blue Zone at COP is where the delegation pavilions are held, including nations and other convening parties, and the negotiations. The negotiations are the major purpose of the annual COP gathering. This year was designed at the ‘Finance COP’ due to the need and urgency for negotiators to solidify climate finance agreements to deploy trillions of dollars needed for the mitigation and adaptation of climate change.
This unfortunately is where COP29 this year falls flat.
Nations are failing to agree on a $1 trillion deal for climate investments in developing nations after a week of negotiations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for G20 leaders, which is a group of 20 sovereign nations making up 80% of global emissions, to step up in the global responsibility to cut emissions. G20 Leaders, who met in Rio De Janeiro on Monday, did issue a declaration calling for urgent action on climate change and global armed conflicts including a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon and peace in Ukraine. However, talks around climate finance are stalled over the final amount of climate finance needed, the type of financing (i.e. public vs. private investments and loans), and who should pay.
COP29 negotiations around ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels’ also nearly collapsed after opposition from oil-rich Saudi Arabia and other developing countries. A decision to postpone talks until next year was originally made, but efforts were made to restore these talks on Monday. The pledge to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was first made at COP28 but left out of the climate and biodiversity decision at COP16 in Colombia this year. Many delegations want to discuss further the process on how to move forward with fossil fuel transitions such as stopping building coal power plants or numerical targets for reductions including methane and deforestation. However, many countries contested this as being ‘inflexible’ and that goals in agreements should be ‘non prescriptive’. Conversations around mitigation might be delayed until the mid-year climate talks in Bonn Germany.
A press release by the White House on November 17th announced that President Biden and his administration had surpassed the U.S. goal of providing $11 billion in annual international climate financing over the course of his administration. This makes the US the largest bilateral provider of climate finance in the world. This press release also announced commitments for $50 million for the Amazon Fund and additional investments in Amazon. While a historic feat, many advocates from the Global South still call for more financing necessary to meet the scale of mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage needed.
President Biden and his administration are attempting to negotiate an agreement with the OECD governments that would end $41 billion in annual oil and gas export finance. This would enforce binding climate negotiators before the Trump Administration and hopefully unblock larger conversations around climate finance to the Global South at COP moving forward. There is a need to get as much funding and financing out of fossil fuels before Trump’s attempts to accelerate the industry.
While COP has been and will continue to be an inspirational, educational, and incredible experience for the UConn@COP team, we cannot lose sight of the goal and intention of COP – to make progress on climate change and have successful negotiations that cut our world’s emissions. While COP29 thus far has proven unsuccessful in terms of important negotiations, we can only wait, hope, and demand that our global leaders end this week with some goddamn climate action.
Sydney Collins is a Campus Climate Action Corps Connecticut – Climate Action Leader with the Office of Sustainability. She was also a UConn@COP Fellow in 2022.