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Is the end near for COPs in petrostates?
Fossil fuels have enjoyed warm hospitality at COPs in recent years, with the last two climate summits being held in fossil fuel-expanding petrostates and COP presidencies even getting caught promoting oil and gas deals on the job.
That’s why a group of top climate experts, scientists and former UN chiefs called for reform in an open letter published this Friday, where they argue that countries expanding oil and gas should not be able to hold the COP presidencies.
Signed by former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, the letter calls on countries to establish a “strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.
The letter does not provide details of who would judge this criteria. Climate Home requested additional information, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
While the experts recognise the importance of UN climate talks, they also call for reform of the COP process, writing that the “current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale” needed to address the climate crisis.
The COP29 presidency has been vocal about its disinterest in a quick fossil-fuel phase out, with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev even telling the opening plenary that fossil fuels are a “gift from god” and that “we must be realistic” about energy transition.
An analysis of Aliyev’s speeches published today by campaign group 350.org found that the Azeri president defended or promoted fossil fuels in more than three quarters of his energy and climate-related speeches. In over a year of such speeches, Aliyev never even mentioned the Paris Agreement, the campaign group found.
Some campaigners backed the reform proposal. Catherine Abreu, director of the International Climate Politics Hub, said it is “demoralising” to hear the messages sent by Azerbaijan’s COP presidency.
She told media in Baku that the UN climate body, UNFCCC, should come up with a “conflict of interest policy” for delegates and the COP presidency that “puts a firewall between fossil fuel interests and the COP process.
She also called on countries to limit the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP. According to research published on Friday by the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, almost 1,800 lobbyists have shown up at COP29 – close to 700 hundred less than last year but more than the delegates of the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries combined.
Currently, countries can select who participates in their delegations, either with a “party” or “party overflow” badge. They do not choose people with an “observer” badge. Most lobbyists are observers, but some countries such as Japan, the UK, Canada and Italy brought fossil fuel lobbyists as part of their national delegations, the Global Witness report found.
According to the report, the biggest group of fossil fuel lobbyists is from an observer group called the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) which sent 43 people.
But IETA denies this characterisation. While it does have a representative from French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, an IETA spokesperson told Climate Home their delegates were “a broad mix” which “includes emitters who are committed to a just transition and solution providers who will help them on that journey”. Drawing up an exclusion list will be contentious.
Peace, Baku style
It is the “Energy, Peace Relief and Recovery” Day here in Baku. But if you’re running through the halls you won’t note much change – as there hasn’t been in conflict-afflicted nations across the world, despite Azerbaijan’s COP Truce proposal.
The COP29 host wanted to pause all the conflicts in the world – which number more than 50 – for the duration of the climate talks, inspired, they said, by the Olympic Truce.
On Friday, the COP Truce appeal did not feature prominently on the agenda. Nonetheless, the presidency said that the initiative received the support of 132 countries. That includes nations currently involved in civil wars and international conflicts, like Sudan, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Azerbaijan itself has yet to reach a fully-fledged peace deal with neighbouring Armenia. According to Azeri media, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said that there cannot be any “physical meetings” with their Armenian counterparts until December as the climate summit is the government’s main focus.
When the COP Truce was first announced, climate campaigners called it a “performative… PR exercise” and “a distraction” from a separate UN-supported push to strengthen climate action in conflict-affected regions.
On that front, the COP29 presidency and six countries launched today the ‘Baku Call on Climate Action for Peace, Relief, and Recovery’, aiming to develop a strategy for preventing climate-induced wars and scaling up support for conflict-struck vulnerable nations.
The initiative will see the creation of a hub through which countries can “collaborate on peace and climate initiatives”.
During an event on this initiative, Climate Home asked Elshad Iskandarov, special envoy of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about the ceasefire appeal. He said that the truce was proposed to “foster peace in the world and highlight the importance of climate” without giving any further details.
(Defund genocide event at COP29, November 14, 2024. Photo: UN Climate Change/Anar Bayramli)
But not everyone feels attuned to the “COP of peace” vision pushed by the COP presidency. Mohammed Usrof, founder of the Palestinian Youth Climate Negotiators Team, voiced concerns about COP29 being hosted in Azerbaijan because the country is Israel’s biggest crude oil supplier, as shown in a recent report by Oil Change International.
Mila Sirychenko, a Ukrainian activist, had reservations about expressing her views at COP due to the large size of the Russian delegation. Russia’s party at this COP counts 900 people, only topped by the Azeri (995) and Brazil delegations (984).
Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and Eni – all companies that supply crude oil to Israel – brought a combined total of 39 lobbyists to the climate summit.
“So many others continue to be complicit with maintaining business as usual,” Usrof told Climate Home, referring to the almost 1,800 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP, many of whom are part of countries’ official delegations. “And, as we see, the business as usual involves the genocide of Gazans.”
“Puzzling” lack of pledges for adaptation
There’s a “great paradox” in evidence at COP29 between leaders’ speeches urgently calling to keep people safe from worsening climate change impacts – and the apparent lack of money available to do that, according to the head of the Adaptation Fund.
The UN fund – which has been at the cutting edge of efforts to build resilience to extreme weather and rising seas for the last 15 years – only managed to secure contributions of around $61 million from donor countries at a fundraising event on Thursday, against its annual goal of $300 million.
This despite exhortations from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN climate chief at the start of COP29 for rich countries to fill the huge gap in adaptation funding, which could reach $187 billion-$359 billion a year by 2030.
“These missing dollars are not abstractions on a balance sheet: they are lives taken, harvests lost, and development denied,” said Guterres.
While there’s still time for more governments to come forward with new pledges before the end of COP29, Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home that “this year the situation looks quite difficult”.
“Contributor governments [are] almost all talking about the importance of adaptation – and quite a few of them are recognising the need for grant-based financing for adaptation especially – so it’s puzzling how that relates to the reality of there not being new pledges to the Adaptation Fund or adaptation funds in general,” he said on the sidelines of the COP.
At last year’s climate conference in Dubai, the fund also fell short of the same target – bringing in around $188 million. But there, wealthy governments had an excuse: they were also asked to dig deep to get the fledgling loss and damage fund up and running, which they did to the tune of nearly $700 million.
This year, however, they can’t hide behind the loss and damage fund as new money for that at COP29 has so far amounted to little more than Sweden’s $18.4 million pledge. Sweden has also stumped up around $763 million for the Green Climate Fund and $12 million for the Adaptation Fund.
This week overall the Adaptation Fund has received pledges from 10 European countries and regions, with flood-hit Spain offering the most ($19 million). The UK and the European Union are so far no-shows, though Germany has said it plans to contribute.
To make matters worse, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Fund – also set up under the UN climate talks to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change – has had to suspend a planned pledging event at CO29 after it “didn’t get very good signals” money would be forthcoming, the chair of the LDC Group told Climate Home on Friday.
Ollikainen said “the direction is quite wrong”, with needs going up and less money coming into the coffers of his fund. The Adaptation Fund has a long pipeline of projects but if donors don’t cough up more it will run out of money, he added. It is set to receive income from a 5% levy on sales of offsets in the new UN carbon market, but that may not start until 2026, he noted.
Samoan minister Cedric Schuster, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told Climate Home he remains hopeful more money will come through for vulnerable countries at COP29 – and that the new climate finance goal due to be agreed in Baku will ensure contributions in the future.
“We can’t do anything if there are no pledges,” he said.
Old rifts back to haunt carbon trading talks
When a series of long-awaited rules for the UN carbon markets were greenlit on COP’s opening day, casual observers of Article 6 negotiations might have surmised that talks over the remaining two weeks would be a breeze – unlike in previous years.
It turns out they were very wrong, as negotiators quickly went back to their deeply-entrenched rifts. The main battleground is Article 6.2, the section of the Paris Agreement that allows countries to trade emission reductions or removals directly through bilateral agreements.
Much like at COP28 last year, there is a split between those pushing for more transparency over how these exchanges take place and stronger oversight, and others wanting to keep a more laissez-faire, light-touch approach.
The European Union is leading the first camp, with support from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and progressive Latin American countries in the AILAC group, while the United States, Japan and the so-called Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries (LMDC) represent the latter position, two observers of the discussions told Climate Home.
It has been a hectic day and a half since a monster-sized text dropped early Thursday afternoon. Over a hundred different options featured over 43 pages. Negotiators struggled to engage with that, so the chair of the talks went back to the drawing board and offered a more streamlined 19 page version on Friday morning.
Observers told Climate Home that key provisions to ensure the integrity of the mechanism have disappeared from the draft decision. That includes, for example, requirements that would make the disclosure of certain information about the carbon-cutting activities mandatory rather than voluntary. The EU is pushing for that to be added back in, Climate Home understands.
Injy Johnstone, a research associate in net-zero aligned offsetting at Oxford University, said that “fault-lines over transparency, accessibility and environmental integrity remain, making the next 24 hours crucial for establishing common ground”.
As diplomats are still due to finish a new round of negotiations late into the Baku Friday night, the prospect of another breakdown is starting to dawn on them.
In brief…
New finance text – A new text on the post-2025 climate finance goal (NCQG) was published at 6.30pm on Friday evening. It’s been cut from 33 to 25 pages – but doesn’t narrow down the options on the most contentious issues. Ministers will be faced next week with tough decisions on who will pay and how much.
Saturday’s march a no-go: The “Defund Genocide” march planned by civil society groups for Saturday has been cancelled, they say, with scaled-down options still under consideration. “The venue can’t really enable us to march,” said Nicolas Haeringer from 350.org. There was a suggestion to march between the seats inside the stadium, where the talks are being held, which activists refused. Another campaigner claimed the real reason is that “the presidency doesn’t want us to”. Complaints about how space for activists has been shrinking at recent COPs have been common in the halls in Baku this past week, backed up by a briefing from civil society networks.
Green light for new forest carbon credits: A key watchdog for the carbon market has given its high-integrity seal of approval to three methodologies for producing offsets that aim to reduce deforestation under so-called REDD+ projects. No credits have been issued so far under the rulebooks for forest projects approved by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), but the body said “there is a large volume of credits in the pipeline”. Hundreds of millions of existing REDD+ offsets have been issued under older methodologies but have faced widespread criticism over their alleged lack of real emissions reductions and failure to protect environmental and human rights. ICVCM did not assess the criteria for these earlier projects and producers of those credits will not be able to claim the high-integrity label unless they switch to the new methodologies.
Countries commit to global energy storage target: Countries including the UK, Uruguay, Belgium and Sweden have backed the COP presidency’s energy storage pledge, which aims to increase global storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, reaching 1,500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. To achieve this, for instance, utility-scale battery storage alone, which was 54GW in 2023, would need to increase 10 times by the end of the decade. “Storage must include support for distributed as well as utility-scale batteries, pumped-hydropower, and other longer duration opportunities,” said Jennifer Layke, global director of energy at the World Resources Institute. ”One emerging opportunity for countries is to repurpose electric vehicle batteries for ‘second life’ applications.”
The article was amended to clarify the countries that have joined the COP29 energy storage pledge.