The UN Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be remembered as the moment climate advocates stayed strong in the face of weak commitments from wealthy, polluting nations.
The following article was published in the January - February 2025 issue of NewsNotes.
The global association of 198 member states that gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan just before Thanksgiving in the windowless corridors of a sprawling stadium were fractured over an often-divisive family issue: money. At the heart of the gathering was the necessity for the finances needed to fuel solutions to rapidly cool down a world on fire.
The 29th Annual United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 29) might go down in history as the moment when international efforts to solve the climate crisis almost went up in smoke. Whether due to sheer exhaustion, sheer determination, or simple lack of alternatives, this COP survived. But just barely.
COP 29 started just four days after the election of Donald Trump and ended as the planet’s hottest year in recorded history (up until then) drew to a close. Both bookends contributed to the pessimistic mood. Trump campaigned on the promise to again pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the heart of the COPs that lays pathways to keeping the globe under a 1.5°C temperature rise. Meanwhile, the problem of climate change roared: three cyclones tore through the Philippines in the time that the meeting gaveled from start to close. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the world has few years left to transition from fossil fuels, or face dire consequences.
But that transition will cost money. Global consensus puts the annual sum in the trillion. Article 9 of the Paris Agreement states that this money must come from those who lit the fire: wealthy developed countries. With the previous finance target expiring in 2025, this COP was tasked with setting the new ten-year finance goal (NCQG). General expectation hovered around $1 trillion per year.
It wasn’t until 3 am, a day after the summit’s scheduled end, that a room full of sleep-deprived country delegates received developed nations’ final proposal: $300 billion per year, less than a fourth of the most conservative estimated need. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev’s gavel drowned out the few with enough reserve to raise their voices.
To add to the collective shock over the paltry quantity of the fund were concerns its quality. No guardrails were set for loans masquerading as climate finance. Highly indebted nations are already forced to choose between meeting their population’s basic needs or protecting them from climate disasters.
While the finance goal squelched most of COPs air, another climate keystone was left unlaid. The new round of national climate action plans (Nationally Determined Contributions- NDCs) are due in February 2025. High-emitting countries were expected to submit ambitious NDCs at this COP, to prod the world back on track to 1.5C goal. While a handful did so, notably the UK with a commitment to reducing emissions by 81 percent, most did not.
Likewise, there was broad hope that the sister issues of climate, biodiversity and desertification would merge again at this COP. All three held separate conventions within weeks of one another this year, though they all emerged from same 1992 Rio Earth Summit (thus dubbed the Rio Trio.) Calls to find synergies on three issues in the name of efficiency and effectiveness we also kicked to next year in the cloud of the final finance fog.
In the aftermath from COP, many global voices questioned whether the COPs should continue. One prominent voice was Christina Figueres, who led the 2015 COP that created the Paris Agreement. She joined other prominent leaders in calling for a fundamental overhaul of the COPs. A few days later she posted a clarification: The COP process is an essential and irreplaceable vehicle for supporting the multilateral, multisectoral, systemic change we urgently need. Now more than ever.
The simultaneous frustration and determination of Figueres resonated among climate justice activists, faith leaders and representatives of climate vulnerable nations present at COP, many of whom devoted days, months, and years to seeking positive outcomes. Within days, a renewed determination began to arise, a commitment to work together on the Road to Belen referring to the Amazon city where COP 30 will be held. In a world of shrinking multi-lateral spaces, there remains a determination to not cede ground, but to double down on the road to a healthy global planet and people. b
Faith in action
Read more about Maryknoll’s participation at COP 29 from the two articles below.
- Catholic sisters at COP29 uplift unequal ways climate change impacts women. https://mogc.info/NCR-cop29
- A spiritual mandate to care for the Earth. https://mogc.info/UCAN
Photo of high level event at the UN COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan by Dean Calma of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) via Flickr.