ESG Series: COP29 preview

  • Oct 29, 2024

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Executive summary │ COP29 preview

Climate finance to take centre stage

COP29 will be a subdued affair

 

 

 

 

 

Two central climate finance dimensions will determine whether COP29 is a success

 

 

 

 

 

Other key items unlikely to gain traction

 

 

 

Expectations across ecosystems are low

 

 

 

 

We provide a comprehensive examination into the current state of affairs of climate negotiations ahead of COP29 in November.

The 29th annual UN Climate Summit – known as COP29 – in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be held from 11-22 November 2024. Coming just days after the US elections and in the midst of heightened geopolitical tensions, it is likely to be a more subdued affair than last year’s ambitious COP28 summit.

We believe the outcomes will be nuanced, with the most crucial deliberations surrounding two central climate finance dimensions:

  1. New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). Intends to establish a new finance target to support emerging markets in their climate actions after 2025 – succeeding the 2009 Copenhagen commitment where developed markets pledged to mobilise USD100bn per year by 2030. Areas under discussion to provide finance for emerging markets surround the quantum, scope, quality, donor base, timeframe and monitoring, in order to make progress on the NCQG.
  2. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Mechanism to enable the official trading emissions reductions and carbon offsets. Whilst the Article 6 rulebook was agreed at COP26, operational rules remain unresolved to date, with a key sticking point being the lack of a clear definition of an offset project. If operational rules are agreed, and a new high-integrity regulated United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) offset market scales up that prohibits avoidance offsets, this could increase reputation and litigation risks for corporates that continue to purchase poorer quality avoidance offsets in unregulated voluntary carbon markets.

Disconcertingly, there has been little progress since COP28 on other outstanding issues, specifically, on loss and damage, adaptation, mitigation, just transition and implementation of the global stocktake outcomes. The private sector is also likely to take a subordinate role at COP29, given both its outsized participation at COP28 and its airtime at other events this year, notably, COP16 on biodiversity and ensuring links with climate are firmly grounded.

All in, COP29 will not have the same fanfare as COP28 in the UAE or COP26 in Scotland. Expectations across the climate ecosystem – from policymakers, corporates and investors – are low. However, the significance of this year’s summit should not be underestimated. Granted, agenda wrangling and walk-outs are not off the table as navigating ambition, economics and the politics of the day, requires level-headedness and compromise. Yet, success at COP29 could set the stage for more ambitious national climate pledges, which are due for an update in 2025, that could create momentum going ahead of COP30 in Brazil.