Countdown to COP29: Raising Global Ambition on the Road to Baku

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Countdown to COP29: Raising Global Ambition on the Road to Baku

In the wonderful surrounds of the Natural History Museum London and in collaboration with the Grantham Institute (Imperial College London), the EU Delegation to the UK hosted scientists, ministers, diplomats, environmental NGOs and business leaders in conversations on how to raise global ambition on the road to the COP29 UN Climate Conference in Baku this November.

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The day long event took place in the museum's Flett Theatre and saw three panels devoted to delivering the energy transition, building resilience and addressing the impacts of climate change, and deploying diplomacy to raise global ambition. The panels featured keynote addresses from scientists, youth advocates, and ambassadors who explored the priority tasks to get global climate action on track.

A message of urgency

Keynote speakers set out the call for urgency in scaling up action. Youth Climate Advisor to the Secretary General, Fatou Jeng highlighted real life stories of friends and family in hometown the Gambia already losing their livelihoods and risking displacement thanks to climate change-exacerbated drought and a lack of access to funds to adapt. She cautioned decision makers and negotiators not to sit in negotiating rooms, but to turn commitments into real action.

Prof Sir Brian Hoskins, Chair, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London broke down what projected changes in average global temperatures could mean for us in our locales. Extreme heat will be much greater than changes in the average temperature thanks to the impacts on the water cycle and water evaporation from the soils. Stark graphics showing how 2023-2024 temperature changes were drastically higher than previous decades - with every month breaking records and 1.5C global average temperature increase exceeded - emphasise how natural variability from phenomena like El Nino can exacerbate modelled impacts. No communities in the UK or globally are prepared for these risks. Leaders need to accelerate emissions cuts to keeping warming below 1.5 degrees while preparing for potential impacts of warming at even higher levels.

Adaptation and resilience lagging
Speakers celebrated progress in UN climate negotiations defining a framework for tracking progress globally and locally on the global goal on adaptation, the goal agreed in 2015's Paris Agreement to enhance global adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change. This progress has brought political attention onto adaptation action long in the shadows of pushes for emissions reduction and will enable better join up in policy planning and finance delivery between actions to adapt to climate change, conserve nature, and improve health outcomes. Negotiators were encouraged to continue finalising the framework and indicators for this global goal to maintain political priority on investing in adaptation planning and unlocking finance to deliver them.

Panelists: H.E. Macenje Mazoka (High Commissioner of the Republic of Zambia), Dr Sally Uren (CEO, Forum for the Future), Dr Emilie Beauchamp (Lead monitoring, evaluation and learning for Adaptation, International Institute for Sustainable Development), Prof Sir David Nabarro (Chair, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London), Laurie Goering (Moderator, Extreme Heat Editor, Climate Resilience for All)

Finance for adaptation was highlighted as the major gap: 129 of 154 developing countries are working on National Adaptation Plans, but lack the access to finance to deliver them. Speakers discussed ways to improve political appetite for richer countries to make greater contributions to adaptation action. Given climate impacts are transboundary with ripple effects at home as well, and impacts on peace and security are bad for business, bad for national and global security, a domestic self interest case can be made to richer country governments that investing in adaptation overseas is an investment in national security. Speakers noted that the private sector can play a major role. This could include offering seed funding for adaptation innovation and funding for scale as we have seen with investment into regenerative agriculture. Businesses can mobilise their supply chain management to build community resilience and deploy their brands to raise awareness. The private sector role in innovating new technologies like early warning systems is key, as well as their role in data sharing platforms and supporting community training. Panelists noted that the private sector can be pushed further to accelerate adaptation preparedness, for example into partnerships with development banks. Policy makers were encouraged to consider policy incentives, tax and subsidy systems that could propel greater private sector contributions to adaptation action.

A call for holistic policy programming
Countries' next Nationally Determined Contributions (the climate plans all countries submit to the UN under the Paris Agreement framework - plans for the 2030s are due next year) were identified as a major opportunity to address lagging adaptation action as well as accelerating actions to cut emissions causing climate damage. Critically, panelists noted that the world needs to move into the implementation phase of climate action where simply setting targets no longer suffices. The level of economic transformation needed requires cross-cutting policy changes across sectors which depends on holistic government policy. Speakers urged governments to bring stakeholders into the policy development process: businesses necessary to implement change and core groups like women, youth and indigenous people who can keep their eyes on justice and public buy-in to policy changes.
Discussion of the European Union's approach to the green transition identified some ingredients for success: the deep policy planning behind the European Green Deal provides stability against political changes as were seen in the most recent EU parliament elections earlier this year. The policy certainty and public support for climate action reinforce one another in the EU. A new focus on energy security in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has opened political space for the EU to broaden its policy approach to the green transition, such as deploying trade rules and agreements to drive investment in green industry.

Panelists: Dr Vivien Foster (Principal research fellow, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London), Brendan Devlin (Advisor, DG Energy, European Commission), Rebecca Kershaw (Business Engagement Lead, Climate Champions Team), Harry Boyd-Carpenter (Managing Director, Climate strategy and delivery, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), Dr Caterina Brandmayr (Moderator,

A deep dive into the energy sector transition saw calls on policymakers to use their NDCs to provide policy certainty on energy transition to derisk investment in renewable energy and incentivise the decommissioning of fossils. Panelists noted that the transition out of fossil fuels is happening and is no longer just a climate policy choice - for example, based on projected demand, Nigeria's fossil fuel revenues are already predicted to drop well over 50% in the next 10 years even if current prices stayed the same. Countries with undeveloped fossil fuel reserves face a 'resource curse' where exploiting them could benefit a small few with little impact on the rest of the country's economy and risk stranded assets as the global energy transition accelerates. In discussing research into the different challenges countries face depending on their natural resource profiles, speakers noted that many countries will need support to manage holistic industrial and economic transition particularly where fossil rents currently constitute up to 30% of government revenues.

Speakers proposed a more holistic approach to climate diplomacy. H.E. Ms Francella Strickland, Samoa's Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union, pointed to the efforts of pacific island nations to target wider multilateral policy and international laws to incentivise faster climate action e.g. through rules and norms targeting the shipping industry in the international maritime organisation and advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice to drive action. Jake Werksman, lead climate negotiator for the European Union, stressed the importance for diplomats and foreign policy makers to deploy wider foreign policy levers - in trade deals, the wider development finance system, security partnerships - to incentivise and support climate transitions overseas. He also insisted on the importance of strong public support for climate policies for enduring action at the policy and political levels. Government capacity to deliver this scale of policy change was discussed with the audience, with calls for greater investment in capacity building initiatives and more government-to-government exchange.

Panelists - Yalchin Rafiyev (Deputy Foreign Minister, Lead Negotiator for COP29, Republic of Azerbaijan), H.E. Ms Francella Strickland (Head of Mission and Ambassador of Samoa to Belgium and the European Union], Jake Werksman (Lead climate negotiator for the European Union, DG CLIMA, European Commission), Camilla Born OBE (Advisor to COP26 President and COP28 Presidency), Alex Scott (Moderator, Independent climate diplomacy strategist)

The importance of the UN Climate Change treaties and annual 'COPs' (conferences of the parties to the climate treaties) was reinforced by all panelists. Azerbaijan's Lead Negotiator for COP29, Deputy Minister Yalchin Rafiyev pointed to the opportunity to agree a new climate finance goal and drive countries' development of their NDCs at the conference in Baku this November. Camilla Born, advisor to the COP26 and COP28 Presidents highlighted the importance of tasking partners to support the diplomatic wrangling needed to reach agreement on tricky issues like the new finance goal and to share the task of encouraging and incentivising countries to bring more ambitious NDCs to COP this year. Australia's climate change ambassador, Kristin Tilley, highlighted the opportunity of a new innovation in UN climate diplomacy of having the past, current, and future COP Presidencies working together in a 'troika' format to improve the continuity of diplomatic strategy and share the load in working with countries to encourage greater contributions to the global climate change effort.

Jake Werksman, DG CLIMA, European Commission

Closing the event, Pedro Serrano, Ambassador of the European Union to the United Kingdom, explained that the European Union is committed to enhancing its green diplomacy and cooperation with partner countries. For the EU, multilateralism and global action are key, and the priority is to deliver on global commitments: the 1st Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework. Ambassador Serrano wished luck and resolve to the COP29 Presidency team, and stressed that COP29 provides an opportunity to push for ambitious action and ensure the voices of the most vulnerable nations are heard and addressed.

H.E. Pedro Serrano, Ambassador of the European Union to the United Kingdom

Conclusion: priority tasks for negotiators & decision makers ahead of COP29

1. Focus on implementation: policymakers can use discussions at COP29 and the preparation of next generation Nationally Determined Contributions (national climate plans) to deliver on the commitments made at the COP28 conference to transition away from fossil fuels
2. Deploy diplomatic coalitions: the COP29 Presidency can draw on wider diplomatic support to forge a path on the new climate finance goal negotiations. The use of the 'troika' of COP Presidencies to drive countries to prepare more ambitious NDCs was encouraged.
3. Build capacities: policymakers can use spaces in the UN climate negotiations and through bilateral and smaller groups to exchange on their experiences of holistic climate policy planning to share and build capacities
4. Prioritise inclusion: policymakers can involve different sectors of society to improve the development of NDCs and whole-of-economy climate policies. The COP29 Presidency can reinforce inclusion particularly of young people, women, and indigenous groups in the Baku conference to enhance the decisions taken at COP29
5. Reinforce the frameworks: negotiators can use the opportunity of finalising indicators under the Global Goal on Adaptation to set a framework for more ambitious adaptation action and foreign policy makers can deploy climate action 'mainstreaming' in other multilateral frameworks to drive action, from the International Maritime Organisation to the World Trade Organisation

Countdown to COP29

Wednesday 26 June 2024, Natural History Museum, London

Watch the recording here: