UN Climate Change Conference Baku

In his speech on World Environment Day 2024, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said “We are at a moment of truth. The truth is…almost ten years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5°C is hanging by a thread… The truth is… global emissions need to fall 9% every year until 2030 to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive. But they are heading in the wrong direction.” As governments and other stakeholders convene in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the annual UN Climate Change Conference, the question on many minds is: Will this year feature the necessary increase of ambitious action to reduce emissions and limit long-term global warming?

What is Climate Change?

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or volcanic eruptions. However, human activities have been the main driver of climate change since the 1800s, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide (CO2).

Scientists have long known the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere can cause climate change. The first scientific article suggesting atmospheric temperatures will rise as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase was published over a hundred years ago in 1896. CO2 and several other gases collect in the atmosphere and act like a blanket—or a greenhouse—wrapped around the Earth. These “greenhouse gas” (GHG) emissions trap the sun’s heat and cause the planet to warm. CO2, the main GHG emitted by human activities, is naturally present in the atmosphere as part of the Earth’s carbon cycle. But human activities, including burning fossil fuels, solid waste, trees and other biological materials, as well as certain chemical reactions, like cement production, are altering the carbon cycle by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. At the same time, the expansion of industrial agriculture and increased urbanization are limiting the extent to which natural sinks, like forests and soils, remove and store atmospheric CO2.

Other GHGs include methane (CH4), which is released through land-use changes, by livestock, from the production of coal, natural gas, and oil, as well as by the decay of organic waste in landfills. Nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases (especially hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)) also contribute to climate change. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main sectors causing GHG emissions.

What is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change?

Climate change is a classic global commons issue. The Earth’s climate system affects everyone, and broad international cooperation is required to mitigate global warming. The first step toward this cooperation was the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the WMO and the UN Environment Programme, and endorsed by the UN General Assembly, in 1988. Its initial task was to prepare a comprehensive review on the state of knowledge of the science of climate change as well as the social and economic impact of climate change, recommending potential response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate. The IPCC’s First Assessment Report in 1990 affirmed global warming as a serious threat. The report predicted that if states continue to pursue business as usual, the global average surface temperature would rise at a rate unprecedented in human history. This led the UN General Assembly to establish an intergovernmental negotiating committee to negotiate a framework convention on climate change, which began its work in February 1991.

In June 1992, 154 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The convention requires Annex I Parties (industrialized countries and countries with economies in transition) to take steps aimed at returning individually or jointly to their 1990 GHG emission levels by 2000. It did not address emissions-reduction targets after 2000, but the text did provide for regular review of the adequacy of the commitments.

The UNFCCC entered into force in March 1994, after ratification by the minimum-necessary fifty states. But immediately, a number of countries, led by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and an international network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) pressed for a significant strengthening of the treaty to include meaningful reductions of GHG emissions.

Kyoto Protocol: The first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC convened in Berlin in March 1995 and immediately addressed the issue of regime strengthening. The COP agreed to negotiate, by the end of 1997, quantitative limits on GHG emissions beyond 2000. After two years of difficult negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP3 in Japan at the end of 1997.

The protocol required Annex I parties to reduce their collective emissions of six GHGs (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) by at least 5% below their 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Countries had different requirements within this collective mandate, ranging from limiting an increase to 10% for Iceland (which had already reduced its emissions by increasing reliance on geothermal and hydroelectric power) to 8% reductions for the European Union (EU) and most of the countries in Eastern Europe. The overall reduction target was not very ambitious and that limited the protocol’s impact from the start.

Paris Agreement: Even before the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in February 2005, attention already turned to the question of what would happen when the first Kyoto commitment period ended in 2012. During four years of negotiations (2005-2009), many of the most difficult issues revolved around broad policy questions concerning the post-2012 period: Should the new commitments be legally binding or voluntary? Which countries would have to reduce their GHG emissions? What targets and timetables should be established? Should these be short-term or long-term targets, or both? Should the controls address GHG emissions in general, like Kyoto, or should they include action on specific sources of emissions, like cement production or deforestation? What types and levels of new technology transfer and financial assistance, if any, should be provided to developing countries? Should developing countries be required to adopt commitments in exchange for such assistance? Should the new agreement take the form of a new protocol, an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the convention, or some other agreement? How should the regime balance action to mitigate climate change and those to help countries adapt to it?

Negotiations based on these challenging issues were supposed to conclude so the new agreement could be adopted at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. When it was presented to the plenary for adoption, a long and acrimonious debate ensued. A group of countries blocked formal adoption of the agreement, calling the process that produced it “untransparent and undemocratic” because most delegates were not involved in the 11th hour negotiations that resulted in the final text of the Copenhagen Accord. In the end, rather than formally adopt it, the COP agreed to merely “take note” of the Copenhagen Accord.

The Accord set forth a long-term, aspirational global goal of limiting temperature rise to no more than 2°C, established a process for recording voluntary mitigation targets and actions of both developed and developing countries, and agreed to increase funding for mitigation and adaptation by developing countries, including the goal for developed countries to jointly mobilize USD 100 billion per year by 2020. By 2010, more than 140 countries had endorsed the Accord, and more than 80 countries had submitted emissions targets and mitigation actions. This set the stage for another series of negotiations, beginning in 2011, that resulted in the Paris Agreement, which was adopted on 12 December 2015.

The Paris Agreement represents an evolution in climate governance. It is built on a bottom-up approach where countries periodically submit “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) of their actions to reduce GHG emissions. Through five-year cycles, parties are expected to “ratchet up” efforts to limit the increase in global temperature to “well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” To track progress, the Paris Agreement created an enhanced transparency framework (ETF). Under the ETF, starting in 2024, countries are to report every two years on actions taken and progress in climate change mitigation, adaptation measures and support provided or received. Additionally, a Global Stocktake takes place every five years to assess collective progress in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and inform the preparation of the next round of NDCs.

What happened at COP 28?

The first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement concluded at COP 28 in Dubai in 2023. This process is supposed to enable countries to assess where they are collectively making progress toward meeting the climate goals, and where they are not. A synthesis report released prior to the COP noted national mitigation commitments fell short by 20.3 to 23.9 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent compared to the levels required to limit warming to 1.5°C by 2030. Thus, to achieve the Paris Agreement’s targets, global GHG emissions need to be cut by around 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 from 2019 levels, aiming for net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

Recognizing progress was too slow across all areas of climate action—from reducing GHG emissions, to strengthening resilience to a changing climate, to getting the financial and technological support to vulnerable nations—parties responded with a decision on how to accelerate action across all areas by 2030. The decision concluding the first Global Stocktake, adopted at COP 28, calls upon parties to contribute to global efforts to, among others:

• triple renewable energy capacity globally and double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030;
• accelerate efforts toward the phase down of unabated coal power;
• accelerate efforts toward net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century;
• transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems to achieve net zero by 2050; 
• accelerate zero- and low-emission technologies, including renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilization and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production;
• accelerate and substantially reduce non-CO2 emissions globally, in particular, methane emissions by 2030;
• accelerate the reduction of emissions from road transport; and
• phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

Loss and Damage: After years of discussion, parties operationalized a fund for responding to loss and damage in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow-onset events. Subsequently, the newly established Board of the Fund selected the Philippines as the host country of the Board and selected Ibrahima Cheikh Diong as the inaugural Executive Director of the Fund for a four-year-term beginning 1 November 2024. COP 28 also designated the consortium of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN Office for Project Services as the host of the Santiago Network on loss and damage, which aims to catalyse technical assistance.

Increasing climate finance: The Green Climate Fund (GCF) received a boost to its second replenishment with six countries pledging new funding in Dubai with total pledges standing at a record USD 12.8 billion from 31 countries, with further contributions expected. Additional commitments were received for several other climate change funds, including the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund, as well as the Adaptation Fund. However, as highlighted in the Global Stocktake, these financial pledges are far short of the trillions needed to support developing countries.

Global Goal on Adaptation: In Dubai, parties also adopted a framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), which aims to support tracking progress on adaptation. The GGA framework includes a range of thematic and dimensional targets and covers the themes of water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication, and cultural heritage. While adaptation efforts are more difficult to quantify than mitigation targets, the GGA aims to guide adaptation planning and strategies at all levels, and to align the necessary finance, technology, and capacity-building support.

What to look for at COP 29?

The UN Climate Change Conference convenes from 11-22 November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. COP 29’s focus will be defining a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG), which is supposed to replace and increase the current USD 100 billion per year goal. When the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, parties agreed to set this new goal by 2025, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries. Much remains in the air. Countries still have to reach agreement on critical aspects of the NCQG, including who should pay and how much money they will mobilize. Agreement on the NCQG is especially crucial to inform the preparation of developing countries’ new NDCs, which are due in February 2025.

Mitigation will be another focus of the COP. After parties failed to reach agreement on the Mitigation Work Programme during the last round of negotiations in June 2024, several groups and parties underscored there will be no good outcome in Baku without progress on mitigation. The idea here is to carry forward the decision on the first GST with regard to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Parties will also conduct a review of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, which helped advance knowledge on loss and damage, and consider progress made in setting up the Santiago Network. Crucially, parties will provide guidance on the operationalization of the new loss and damage fund, including eligibility criteria.

Parties will further reflect on initial progress made in defining adaptation indicators, a process set to conclude in 2026. Some also hope agreement will finally be reached on the modalities for market-based cooperative approaches for implementing the Paris Agreement (Article 6.2 and Article 6.4).

With the NDC updates due early in 2025, achieving a strong outcome at COP 29 is critical. The COP must send a signal that the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement are fit for purpose. By closing the finance gap and steering progress on phasing out fossil fuels, among other issues, COP 29 can set a precedent for comprehensive climate action. However, failure to send this signal could lead to renewed criticisms that the climate regime and the international community just continue to talk while the planet burns.

Pamela Chasek, Ph.D., is the Co-founder and Executive Editor of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.