From the 11th until the 22nd of November 2024, Baku (Azerbaijan) hosted the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP 29) focused on mitigation of climate change to avoid overshooting the 1.5 °C temperature target. This year, a central topic concerned scaling up finance to address the impacts of global warming.
In order to tackle the issue of cutting warming gases emissions, countries were committed to develop a new cash target for developing nations by 2025 which may allow them to reduce the use of carbon while adapting to the worst impacts of rising temperatures. However, finding an agreement in such a complex and fast-changing political framework as the current one, with the results of the USA elections and major conflicts going on in various parts of the globe, presented non-negligeable difficulties. Furthermore, the absence of major actors such as the outgoing U.S. President, Joe Biden, and the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, may have weakened the effectiveness of the reached agreements.
Moreover, the foreseen objectives were considered as highly ambitious with respect to the past. Indeed, the expected mobilization of 1.000 billion dollars is a significant step forward from the precedingly promised contributions which would be around 100 billion annually. While many doubt about the real possibility of respecting such measures, further conflicts of interest emerge on the topic of energy transition. As a matter of fact, similarly to last years’ debate about hosting the COP 28 in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), also this year, choosing a country whose economic growth heavily relies on fossil fuels raised doubts on how the negotiations would have been biased by the hosting country’s position.
To conclude, COP 29 was surrounded by scepticism about the actual capability of respecting the signed agreements by the various stakeholders and strong debate on the size of financial contributions by developed counties. Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, many other events apart from the COP 29 are occupying the international arena. As a result, focusing once again the international debate on the global climate emergency may have been fundamental as never before.
Source: INSME Secretariat
