Dossier
COP29: Climate Conference in Baku
The 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22, 2024. This dossier contains analyses and comments on the most important negotiating points.
COP29 in Baku aimed to define a sustainable goal for global climate financing. It failed to do so. Instead, the negotiators agreed on international carbon markets, which now open new loopholes for fossil fuel emitters and thereby intensify climate injustice.
COP29: Results
COP29 was labelled the "climate finance" COP: it was expected to define a future-proof and equitable goal for global climate finance, which is to flow annually from industrialized countries to the Global South over the next decade. It failed to do so: the outcome of the negotiations, widely described as a major disappointment, is only 300 billion US dollar per year. This is several orders of magnitude away from what is needed to finance mitigation, adaptation to the climate crisis, and loss and damage in the Global South: several trillion dollars per year. In addition, too much emphasis is placed on the private sector and loans instead of public funds in the form of grants, which do not exacerbate debt in the Global South.
The "Baku to Belém Roadmap" is intended to close the gap to the 1.3 trillion demanded by the Global South as a compromise – but tangible results have yet to materialize. In addition, COP29 launched the international carbon market mechanisms under the Paris Agreement that create many new loopholes for fossil fuel emitters—this is already evident in the new round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) due in 2025.
