Baku Climate Conference: Prioritize Global Climate Finance
Professor Dr. Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder:
Conference of the Parties (COP) is the highest policy-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since the creation of the UNFCCC at the Rio Conference in 1992, the COP has held an annual conference to review progress in response to climate change, discuss commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These conferences bring every country under one roof. The first COP-1 conference was held in Berlin, Germany from March 2 to April 7, 1995 where decisions were taken on joint initiatives to combat global climate change. The Paris Agreement was recommended based on the opinions of 196 countries at the COP-21 conference on climate change of the United Nations. The agreement agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by about 43 percent by 2030, and how to get carbon emissions to zero by 2050 is discussed. In line with that, at the historic COP 28 in Dubai, we secured a Loss and Damage Fund that will fund affected countries by 2026.
COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is expected to bring major progress in climate finance adaptation and global assessment (Global Stocktake) under the Paris Agreement. Top leaders from around 200 countries will come together at COP 29 to address the global climate crisis. The main goal of this year’s conference is to find ways to provide more financial support to poor countries suffering from the climate crisis.
The world’s developing countries need about $1 billion a day to deal with the effects of today’s extreme weather, with just 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming, according to a report by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) released on Thursday. They’re actually getting less than a tenth of that, about $75 million a day. UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it in typically stark terms: “Climate disaster is the new reality and we’re not waking up to it. The climate crisis is here and we cannot put off taking action. We have to adapt and now.” He noted that while adaptation funding is falling far short of what is needed, the purveyors of all this destruction — especially the fossil fuel industry — are reaping huge profits and subsidies.
The worst part is that the worst impacts of the climate crisis are growing even faster when adaptation funding is increasing – from $22 billion in 2021 to $28 billion in 2022, said Henry Neufeldt, lead author of the UNEP report.
The summit’s president-elect, Mukhtar Babayev, called COP29 a “moment of truth for the Paris Agreement”. “We are on the verge of destruction, but these are not future problems,” he said. Climate change is already upon us. He feels COP29 is an unexpected moment to start a new path for everyone.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said in his speech at the opening plenary that Stiell hails from Carriacou on the island of Grenada, which was pummelled by Hurricane Beryl in July. He showed a photograph of himself standing with an elderly neighbour, Florence, whose home was flattened by the storm. The UN negotiations can feel far away from environmental disasters harming people like those in Florence, yet the climate crisis is affecting every single person in the world in some way, driving up energy bills, fueling global instability and taking lives, he says. Among the main priorities at COP29 will be setting a new global financial target, finalizing carbon market rules and pledging to reduce planet-wide pollution, he noted.
Outgoing UAE COP President Sultan Al Jaber gave brotherly advice to incoming COP President Mukhtar Babayev of Azerbaijan, “Put deeds above words. History will judge us by our actions, not our words.” He also said the voluntary industry initiative, the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, now has companies representing 44 percent of global production committing to zero methane emissions by 2030. Whether there are any signs that the move to “transition away” from fossil fuels is being implemented could come with the release of the 2024 global carbon budget on Wednesday.
“The climate crisis is getting worse every year and it seems like every year we have another fossil fuel company using the climate talks to get more oil and gas deals,” said Patrick Galey, senior fossil fuel investigator at Global Witness. The State Oil Company (SOCAR) has signed 25 agreements with foreign companies in vulnerable countries that depend on COP for their survival, to secure a path to their future. SOCAR’s goal – to produce massive amounts of oil and gas over decades – directly contradicts the stated goals of the UN climate talks. This conflict of interest is slowing down progress towards curbing climate disruption. Big polluters should not have a place in this discussion. We must get them out of this discussion before it’s too late.
According to Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans, the opening plenary has been halted to discuss the draft agenda, which includes some contentious issues. Among these contentious issues is the EU’s CBAM – the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a type of carbon tax, which has long been under discussion and last year’s attempt to get it onto the agenda failed.
Allie Rosenbluth, co-manager of climate NGO Oil Change International, said at a press conference that Donald Trump’s re-election in the US was “terrible” news for the climate movement. Trump rolled back dozens of environmental regulations during his first term. He pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord – something he has vowed to do again. Trump’s impending role could pose a major hurdle to US climate action plans and climate finance commitments.
About 20 million people in Bangladesh will be displaced from their current habitats by 2050 and 13 percent of the country’s coastal area could be lost under sea water by 2080 if urgent action is not taken to prevent the negative effects of climate change. Industrialized nations have pledged to contribute $100 billion annually by 2025. But they haven’t kept their word since 2015 the country has only received $13 billion from the Green Climate Fund. Although $20 billion is needed every year from 2020 to 2030, Bangladesh has so far received only $710 million from international sources, which is only 2 to 3 percent of the money pledged at the Paris Cup. But we can get from this COP an effective reflection of the commitment we got at COP 28 held in Dubai in 2023 for the Loss and Damage Fund which will finance the affected countries by 2026. I believe that we will take the necessary steps to get loss and damage fund from this COP.
Professor Dr. Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, Dean, Faculty of Science, Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Stamford University Bangladesh, Joint Secretary, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) & Chairman, Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CAPS).