GUEST COLUMN : COP29: Mixed success and disappointments, but India emerged as a leader of developing nations
GS Rajwar
The Conference of the Parties (COP), is held annually, with the Presidency rotating between the five recognised UN regions- Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean (GRULAC), and Western European and Others (WEOG). The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29), was held in Baku, Azerbaijan under this November. COP29 fully operationalised Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Article 6 provides trusted and transparent carbon markets for countries as they collaborate to reach their climate goals. This cross-border cooperation is expected to reduce the cost of implementing countries’ national climate plans (NDCs) by up to $250 billion annually. COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev stated, “Climate change is a transnational challenge and Article 6 will enable transnational solutions. Because the atmosphere does not care where emissions savings are made.” COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev commented, “Today, we have unlocked one of the most complex and technical challenges in climate diplomacy. Article 6 is hard to understand, but its impacts will be clear in our everyday lives. It means coal plants decommissioned, wind farms built and forests planted. It means a new wave of investment in the developing world.”
The initiatives declared at Baku include, energy pledges and declarations endorsed by 150 Parties; declaration on Green Digital Action endorsed by more than 75 governments to use digital tools to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience; Human Development for Climate Resilience jointly stated upon by eight UN agencies; Climate and Health Continuity Coalition endorsed by five COP Presidencies (COP26 to COP30), alongwith the WHO director-general advocating health to be a core feature of future COP conferences; Reducing Methane from Organic Waste Declaration endorsed by over 50 countries including eight of the world’s 10 largest organic waste methane emitters representing 51 per cent of global methane emissions from organic waste, committing to sectoral targets to reduce methane from organic waste implementing the Global Methane Pledge; Baku Harmoniya Climate Initiative for Farmers for bringing together the dispersed landscape of existing climate initiatives in the field of food and agriculture, to make support for farmers easier to find and to facilitate access to finance; MAP Declaration for Resilient and Healthy Cities endorsed by over 160 parties, bringing together UN agencies and IGOs, MDBs, MCFs, philanthropic organisations, bilateral donors and implementing agencies for partnership and collaboration on urban climate finance; Declaration on Enhanced Action in Tourism endorsed by over 60 governments to promote sustainable tourism practices by reducing emissions and increasing resilience in the sector, ultimately making tourism a key component of climate solutions and the Declaration on Water for Climate Action endorsed by over 50 countries, to adopt an integrated approach to combating the causes and impacts of climate change on water basins and water-related ecosystems.
During COP29 Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) announced projections for their contributions to climate action as $170 billion per year by 2030, with $120 for low- and middle-income countries. The largest contributions against loss and damage made during COP29 came from Australia and Sweden. Total pledges to the fund to date have surpassed $730 million. Countries, including the US, China, EU, UAE, UK, Brazil, Canada, and Nigeria, came together and announced policies focused on reducing methane from organic waste.As part of a $193 million package for various clean energy initiatives, the UK supported clean cooking for 10 million peopleacross Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Indo-Pacific to leave coal and wood cooking behind. With Germany’s pledge of $65.1 million and Ireland’s pledge of $13 million, contributions to the Adaptation Fund reached $133 million. Climate Investment Funds increased, collecting additional contributions from the US ($325 million), Germany ($220 million), and the UK ($211 million).
It has been widely reported that opportunities were missed to create the required clarity and determination on finance and ambition, there was some good news, even a breakthrough, on the establishment of government-backed, international carbon markets of the future. The summary highlights the recent, impressive achievements of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)-convened net-zero groups, progress on financing climate adaptation, and the implications for financial institutions of some of the summit’s outcomes. Regarding climate finance, governments agreed to the agreement on financing for developing countries, firstly a ‘goal’ of USD 300 billion by 2035 which represents a tripling of the last goal agreed on at the Copenhagen COP in 2019, and a second wider, ‘aspiration’ of USD 1.3 trillion to be mobilised by 2035. It is not clear how these sums will be raised and who will deliver the finance, which may prove problematic. On carbon markets, the only real breakthrough at COP29 was the finalisation of rules pertaining to international, high-integrity government-backed carbon markets, after a decade of negotiations. It is said to be good news because carbon markets reduce the cost of decarbonisation and as such can increase member states’ ambition to decarbonise to the levels that we require.
A major UNEP FI-led initiative at COP29 was the launch of the Net-Zero Export Credit Agencies Alliance: Aligning trade finance with net zero. The new tool provides guidance to export credit agencies (ECAs) and export-import banks (Exlm) on setting long-term and intermediate science-based climate targets and related disclosures, helping members to fulfill their commitments. There was a call on governments to act as over 600 financial institutions sign the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change. Major recommendations included ensuring that public finance supports regulatory and jurisdictional interventions to make Paris-aligned investments more financially viable than non-aligned ones. This strategic approach addresses barriers to scaling private finance, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), where financing gaps remain most acute. COP29 also highlighted the urgent need to scale adaptation finance, with UNEP FI emphasising the role of concessional finance, metrics, and taxonomies in mobilising private investment. Positive outcomes included new emission reduction pledges from the European Union, Canada and other regions. Countries have agreed on the final building blocks that set out how carbon markets will operate under the 2015 Paris Agreement, making country-to-country trading mechanisms operational. Seventy-eight NGOs including Save Soil, 4per1000 and SEKEM endorsed a policy recommendation document focussed mainly on securing a new climate finance target for countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, calling on to facilitate access to climate finance for soil restoration.
Developed nations have agreed to channel at least $300 billion a year into developing countries by 2035 to support their efforts to deal with climate change. However, the new climate-finance goal has left developing countries bitterly disappointed. They were united to call for developed countries to raise $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance. In the end, negotiations resulted in agreement on a looser call to raise $1.3 trillion each year from a wide range of sources, including private investment, by 2035.
India, Nigeria and some other developing countires, accused the COP29 presidency of pushing the deal through without their proper consent, following chaotic last-minute negotiations. The goal of $300 billion adopted by COP29 with categorical objections from countries including India, Nigeria, Bolivia and Cuba. The voices of the most vulnerable were sidelined. According to some climate experts the $300 billion deal is not sufficient. Director of Climate Action Network (CAN), Europe, Chiara Martinelli, said the EU and rich countries have failed to deliver for the most vulnerable. The final agreement was objected to by India and some other countries. Countries failed to reach an agreement on how the outcomes of last year’s “global stocktake”, including a key pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, should be taken forward, instead shunting the decision to COP30 next year in Brazil. They managed to find agreement on the remaining sections of Article 6 on carbon markets, meaning all elements of the Paris Agreement have been finalised nearly 10 years after it was signed. Expectations for climate finance were never to achieve. Assessments have shown that developing countries need $1.3 trillion annually through 2025 to build infrastructure for adapting to climate change, investing in clean energy, land use and urban development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recovering from disasters. Developed countries led by the EU say the demands of the developing world are unreasonably high. The developing countries argue that contributions by developing countries should reflected on the basis of their historical contribution to existing carbon concentrations in the atmosphere as well as their per capita GDP. During every COP conference, the differences crop up between the developed nations and the developing countries on sharing and funding the climate change recovery compliances, but in the COP29 India’s objections were endorsed by some developing countries, showing India’s emergence as a leader of developing countries.
( The author is professor emeritus of Sparsh Himalaya University, Dehradun and a fellow, Linnean Society of London. Views expressed are personal)
