COP29 or FLOP29?

Why global action always falls short - and what you can do to help

Negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended this weekend. The final proposal asks wealthy nations to provide $300 billion a year to help poorer nations make the energy transition and adapt to climate change.

This is more than the $100 billion commitment from a few years ago. However, most countries didn't even deliver on that. And during the negotiations, a previous offer for $250 billion per year was called “insulting” and “unacceptable” by poorer nations and the coalition of small island states and least-developed countries walked out.

The Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance estimates that developing countries need at bare minimum $1 trillion a year to accelerate the clean energy transition and build resilience to climate impacts.

These ongoing challenges highlight a fundamental issue: while these Conferences of the Parties are necessary for global climate negotiations, they fall far short of the urgent and transformative action we need.

First, the structure and format of these meetings, unchanged since the inaugural one in 1995, no longer meet the scale or complexity of today’s climate crisis. For that reason, I signed this open letter advocating for critical reforms to COP. One of the key recommendations is that countries unwilling to commit to phasing out fossil fuels should no longer be eligible to host these conferences. As the letter states, “Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

Second, I believe climate action must extend well beyond national gatherings. It has to become a shared responsibility across every region and sector. We need collaborative efforts where cities unite to share solutions, organizations strive to outdo each other in tangible progress, and energy companies come together to lead industry-wide transformations. If we are to meet our climate goals, we don’t just need better COPs; we have to re-imagine how we mobilize change at every level.

GOOD NEWS

One bright spot from COP29 is that 25 countries so far have pledged to bring no new unabated coal power online in the future. (That means no new coal without energy-intensive carbon capture, which would make the energy from coal much more expensive than nearly every other type of electricity.) Those signing on included the UK, Canada, Germany, as well as the European Union. Indonesia also pledged to phase out all of its coal plants within the next 15 years. Currently, Indonesia gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal and natural gas.

“A large majority of countries have already turned their backs on coal power, opting for affordable, reliable, clean energy instead, but globally coal power is still growing,” said European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra. “New coal power is one of the biggest threats to keeping 1.5C within reach.” A previous analysis has showed that just 5 percent of the world’s coal plants generate three quarters of the sector's carbon pollution, and most of these are located in the United States, Europe, India, and East Asia.

Sadly, China, India - the world’s two biggest consumers of coal - as well as the U.S. did not sign on to the agreement. The pledge on no new coal power will be included in the signatories new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due in February.

NOT-SO-GOOD NEWS

Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil giant that is a pillar of the Saudi economy, is the largest producer of oil and gas on the planet. So it’s not hard to understand why Saudi Arabia has acted so brazenly in Baku during COP29.

Its diplomats are reportedly working behind the scenes to block any renewed commitments to phase out fossil fuels — despite the fact that it was one of 200 countries that signed the pledge last year at COP28 to move away from fossil fuels. Over the past year, Saudi officials have also lobbied to exclude such language from five different U.N. resolutions. And there’s evidence that COP29 negotiating documents had been hand-edited by a member of Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry.

“They are acting with abandon here,” Alden Meyer, senior associate with E3G, says. “They’re just being a wrecking ball.” Alden has attended nearly every COP meeting since they began. I had the privilege of working with him at the Paris COP in 2015, where I was part of a team of scientists supporting low-income countries' negotiating teams. For a look back at the historic Paris COP21, read my interview with Alden here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

For climate action to happen at scale, conversations have to move beyond international summits to what’s happening in our communities, our workplaces, and our organizations. And there, change isn’t something we wait for; it’s something we catalyze.

One of the most impactful things you can do, according to social science, is start a conversation about climate solutions where you work or study. Ask what your organization is already doing, and what more it could do—and share that with people around you, particularly those who can make decisions. From what I’ve seen, big change rarely starts at the top. Much more often, it begins with someone inside who cares enough to speak up—and that someone could be you.

If you don’t know where to start, organizations like Climate Voice and Hurd are great resources. ClimateVoice helps employees advocate for climate commitments within their workplaces, and Hurd is an app that, as they say, “turns every job into an opportunity for climate action” through connecting people who want to make this a priority.

This week, take a few minutes to explore their resources. Then take the next step: start that conversation. Don’t wait for someone else. Change starts with us—and it can start now.

Sun., Dec. 1st at 4pm ET - My talk with the American Conservation Film Festival - in person in Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Wed., Dec. 4th at 7pm ET - Building Hope in a Warming World with Dickinson College - in person at the ATS Auditorium and live-streamed online