COP29

COP29 was the 29th Conference of the Parties for climate change, held from 11 to 24 November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Conference of the Parties

The Conferences of the Parties (COP) for climate change started in 1995. They are annual international meetings that aim for a joint effort to fight climate change. The participants are mainly the member countries of the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, though other stakeholders take part as observers.

The main focus of the COP meetings has been reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other recurring topics include adapting to climate change and funding for global collaboration.

One of the most significant COP meetings was COP21, held in Paris in 2015. Its outcome was the world's most significant climate agreement: the Paris Agreement. Nearly every UN member (193 of 195 countries) agreed to work together to reduce emissions, with a goal of keeping global warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

What happened at COP29

The headline outcome was a new global climate finance goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Developed countries committed to help channel at least $300 billion a year to developing countries by 2035, as part of a broader ambition to mobilise $1.3 trillion annually from all sources, public and private, by the same year. Many developing nations called the $300 billion figure insufficient given the scale of need.

COP29 also finalised the rules for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the framework for international carbon markets, after nearly a decade of negotiation. This included rules for country-to-country trading and a new UN-supervised crediting mechanism, with added environmental and human rights safeguards.

Other issues, including how to follow up on the previous year's fossil fuel transition pledge, were left unresolved and pushed to COP30 in Brazil.

Source: Carbon Brief