Azerbaijan is the third authoritarian and repressive petro state in a row to host the COP presidency. The most important issues on the COP29 agenda: the new global goal on climate finance (NCQG) and the negotiations on carbon markets - and for both is true: the climate crisis is a matter of global justice.
Climate Finance
COP29 will take place from 11 to 22 November 2024 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The conference is dubbed the “finance COP” because the most important decision to be taken is an agreement on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. Since the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, an internationally set financial goal had been agreed according to which the global North should support the global South with USD 100 billion in climate finance annually from 2020. This goal - set politically and not based on current needs or scientific findings - expires in 2025 and must be replaced by a new target. This new finance goal is scheduled to be agreed in at COP29 in Baku.
In recent years, evidence has mounted that the finance needed to transition away from fossil fuels and towards a climate-friendly economy, as well as to adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis and compensate for loss and damage, is huge: It is no longer a question of billions, but of several trillions per year that are required - and the finance needs will only grow in the future. COP29 will show if the global North is prepared to fulfill its obligations to support countries of the global South in the future - a question of climate justice - or if the basic principles underpinning the international climate regime, in particular the solidarity of common but differentiated climate action, will be undermined.
Carbon Market Mechanisms
One article from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement remains to be finalised: Article 6, which includes the carbon market mechanisms under the Paris Agreement. The negotiations on carbon markets have already failed due to controversies at COP27 and COP28. A major and fundamental problem with carbon markets is that they give high-emitting industries and countries the opportunity to ‘offset’ their emissions while continuing business as usual. However, the dwindling global carbon budget that remains for the 1.5°C limit has no room for carbon offsets. In addition, so-called "carbon removals" are now to be included in carbon markets, including through large-scale, uncertain and risky carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.
This would allow industry to further delay the necessary shift away from fossil fuels by hoping for a “techno fix” to solve the problem in the future. The inclusion of carbon removals into carbon markets would push such problematic geoengineering technologies further into the mainstream of international climate policy and misdirect climate finance that is already too scarce. Instead, the fossil fuel industry should be required to pay - according to the polluter-pays principle - for climate damage and to support the people already most affected by the climate crisis, for example through a climate damage tax, and not be subsidised further.
New national climate targets
The new national climate targets are due in 2025: every five years, all parties to the Paris Agreement are required to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and ramp up their climate ambition. It can be assumed that important countries will announce their new NDCs at COP29 to set the bar. However, the implementation of NDCs also depends on the climate finance discussions as most countries in the global South link ambitious commitments to financial support from the global North – in particular in times of excessive debt.
Azerbaijan: a problematic COP presidency
Azerbaijan is the third authoritarian and repressive petro state in a row to host the COP presidency. COP28 was previously held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and COP27 in Egypt. Leading the negotiation process this year, the Azerbaijani government describes fossil fuels as a "gift from God" and is not even considering a phase-out, despite looking for foreign investment in renewables. Gas cooperation with the EU has been stepped up since Russia's all-out war against Ukraine. According to experts, Azerbaijan's climate policy is "absolutely inadequate" in light of the challenges ahead.
Genuine local civil society participation will hardly be possible - in the last decade, the Azerbaijani government has cracked down on independent civil society in the harshest possible way, leaving it barely existent in the country. Since 2023, a new wave of arrests has targeted environmental and peace activists. Azerbaijan has no interest in strengthening the role and implementation of human rights in the climate process: the upcoming revision of the Gender Action Plan of the UNFCCC, which is to be negotiated in Baku, has not made it onto the COP presidency's list of priorities.
...and the road to COP30
Many are already looking ahead to COP30 in 2025 in Brazil. Linked with COP16, the UN Biodiversity Conference happening in Cali, Colombia, this October, hopes are high that nature, global ecosystems and biodiversity will rank high on the agenda next year, and that solutions and approaches to tackle the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis simultaneously will take centre stage.
This article first appeared here: www.boell.de