- The COP29 leadership has laid out its plans for what it hopes to achieve as countries continue to wrestle with raising ambitions for a new financing target.
- The COP29 presidency also hopes to build support around a pledge to increase global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, reaching 1,500 gigawatts by 2030.
The COP29 United Nations Climate Summit leadership has laid out its plans for what it hopes to achieve as countries continue to wrestle with raising ambitions for a new financing target.
The main task for the November summit is for countries to agree on a new annual funding target that wealthy countries will pay to help poorer nations cope with climate change. Many developing countries say they cannot upgrade their targets to cut emissions faster without receiving more financial support to invest in this.
With countries remaining far from agreement on the financing goal, the COP29 presidency this week outlined more than a dozen side initiatives that could raise ambitions but do not require party negotiation and building consensus, which can hamper progress. These take the form of new funds, pledges, and declarations that national governments can adopt.
Notably, this includes a fund with voluntary contributions from fossil fuel-producing countries and companies for the public and private sectors working on climate issues, as well as grants that can be doled out to assist with climate-fuelled natural disasters in developing countries.
Such side agendas use “the convening power of COP and the hosts’ respective national capabilities to form coalitions and drive progress,” said Mukhtar Babayev, who holds the rotating COP presidency, in a letter to all parties and stakeholders.
At last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai, over 120 countries pledged to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
The COP29 presidency also hopes to build support around a pledge to increase global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, reaching 1,500 gigawatts by 2030. This would include a commitment to scale up investments in energy grids, adding or refurbishing more than 80 million km (50 million miles) by 2040.
Babayev, Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources, said the agenda would “help to enhance ambition by bringing stakeholders together around common principles and goals.” “We hope to address some of the most pressing issues while highlighting remaining priorities,” he said.
Another declaration would see countries and companies create a global market for clean hydrogen, addressing regulatory, technological, financing and standardisation barriers.COP29 leaders have also appealed for a “COP Truce” highlighting the importance of peace and climate action.
Despite countries’ existing climate commitments, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels hit a record high last year, and the world just registered its hottest summer on record as temperatures climb.