Climate

We are being reminded the hard way that we share this world. Smoke knows no boundaries, and neither does fire.

We have hardly begun to understand how inextricably our own health and safety are intertwined with those of our wild neighbors.

As leaders gather for a global climate summit, investors are rewarding oil giants like Exxon Mobil that did not embrace wind and solar.

It’s not that hard, and there’s a bonus: Portfolios without fossil fuels have generally performed just as well as the broader market.

As the second week of the UN climate talks, COP29, get underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiations are reaching a critical stage.

Nations remain far apart in reaching agreement on a new climate finance commitment from richer countries and will need to double down on efforts over the next few days to secure an ambitious outcome. Finance is the top priority for this COP and is the linchpin to help lower-income nations transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, close the energy poverty gap, adapt to climate impacts, and address mounting loss and damage.  

What the science says is needed for international climate finance

As a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) points out, the goal of tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 that countries agreed to last year in Dubai requires investments on the order of $1.5 trillion annually. The International Energy Agency confirms that midcentury climate goals can be met but will require trillions of dollars for renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid transmission, and energy storage. Those investments will deliver huge climate and public health benefits from reduced fossil fuel pollution. Meanwhile, the latest UN Adaptation Gap report estimates that the finance gap for adaptation is $187-359 billion per year. And with every year of delay on robust climate action, loss and damage is piling up across the world. 

US election results cast pall over COP29 opening days

The US election results, coming just days before COP29 started, certainly cast a pall over the opening days of COP29. The United States is the largest historical emitter of heat-trapping emissions and a major player at these negotiations. The prospect of an incoming Trump administration that has threatened to exit the Paris Agreement and roll back key climate and clean energy policies is deeply concerning, especially against a backdrop of rapidly worsening climate impacts and a continued rise in global heat-trapping emissions. Unfortunately, with a prospective anti-science administration that seems hellbent on undermining global diplomacy, we can fully expect that they will follow through on their threats.  

While some politically and economically popular clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act may prove durable and action from forward-looking states and businesses will be significant, there’s no doubt that a lack of robust federal leadership will leave US climate action hobbled for a time. Other nations—including the European Union nations and China—and states and businesses in the US will need to step up to fill the void.  

Nevertheless, here at COP29, the Biden administration still represents the US, and, despite the election outcome, has an important opportunity to show leadership, take responsibility, and champion ambitious outcomes in these negotiations. These global outcomes can also help set north star goals for what’s needed well past the term of the next administration.  

UCS delegation at the COP29 venue. Credit: Rachel Cleetus, UCS.

Ahead of COP, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) joined over 80 US-based groups in sending a letter urging the Biden administration to support an agreement to collectively provide at least $1 trillion annually in climate finance for lower income nations. UCS is also calling on the Biden administration to announce an ambitious emissions reduction commitment for the country—aka a nationally determined contribution (NDC)—for 2035. That will give the climate advocates, subnational actors, and others who support climate action an important goal to rally around through the Trump administration’s term and beyond. Cutting emissions sharply by ramping up renewable energy and transitioning away from fossil fuels is good for the nation’s economy and for public health, in addition to contributing to global climate efforts to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

Climate finance negotiation status at COP29 

Week one of COP29 saw little progress on the core issue of climate finance—or the new collective quantified goal (NCQG)—with the negotiating text still at a lengthy 25 pages and containing a lot of bracketed options showing areas where nations have still not reached consensus. The key and contentious issues of the overall quantity of finance, the quality of the sources finance (e.g. public grants versus loans), and how to define which nations will be part of the contributor base will be punted to the ministerial segment, which gets underway in the coming days.  

On the issue of expanding the contributor base, it was encouraging to see China announce that it has already provided and mobilized $24.5 billion in climate finance for developing nations since 2016, which closely matches estimates of China’s south-south finance contributions from US-based experts at WRI.  

A new study recently released by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG), underscored the need for climate finance to be made available to developing countries (not including China) on the order of at least $1 trillion annually by 2030, and $1.3 trillion by 2035. This is the third report of the IHLEG, which has been providing an independent perspective on the finance agenda since COP26. Overall, the report estimates that “the global projected investment requirement for climate action is around $6.3–6.7 trillion per year by 2030.” The report also warns that if countries fail to marshal sufficient funding in a timely way, the task of cutting emissions becomes much harder, requiring more money more quickly, and that funding needs for adaptation and loss and damage will also rise sharply as climate change worsens.  

Another new study, from the Global Solidarity Levies Taskforce, shows opportunities for raising funds from innovative sources to help meet climate finance goals. Options could include a cryptocurrency levy (which could raise $5.2 billion annually), a tax on the ultra-wealthy (which could raise $200-250 billion annually), and a plastics production levy (which could raise $25-35 billion annually). These kinds of options should be additive to what is committed directly by richer nations through public finance and would require global tax agreements outside of the UN climate talks.  

Adaptation and Loss and Damage Funds need more contributions at COP29 to deliver for climate-vulnerable nations

During the first week of COP29, there was a signing ceremony to finally get the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage operationalized so it can start receiving and disbursing funding for lower income nations often coping with the most extreme impacts of climate change. The World Bank is serving as the trustee for the Fund and the Fund’s first executive director, Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, began his four-year term this month.  

Global civil society representatives meet with new UN Fund for Loss and Damage Executive Director Ibrahima Cheikh Diong. Credit: Rachel Cleetus, UCS

While this marks important progress for this hard-won fund, the amount of actual funding collected remains woefully inadequate. At COP29, only one new contribution has come in—$19 million from Sweden—bringing the overall amount to $720 million thus far. Last year at COP28 in Dubai, the United States contributed a paltry $17.5 million to the fund.  Without a significant ramp-up in pledges, this fund will not deliver justice for those on the most acute frontlines of the climate crisis. And to ensure ongoing predictable and adequate levels of funding, it’s crucial for the NCQG agreement to also include specific provisions for funding for loss and damage.  

Meanwhile, the UN’s Adaptation Fund is also suffering from gross underinvestment. So far, that fund has only raised contributions of around $61 million from donor countries, far short of its annual goal of $300 million. And richer countries are still far off track from delivering on their pledge to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion annually by 2025.  

Adaptation has historically received much less attention and funding than emissions reduction efforts and is much less attractive for private sector, profit-driven investments. It must get appropriate attention in the NCQG outcome, and it’s especially important to ensure the focus is on grant-based funding so as not to feed into the cycle of debt with which low-income nations are already contending. 

What countries need to do in final week to guarantee a good COP29 outcome

The midpoint of climate negotiations is always a challenging time. Not enough progress has been made thus far at COP29, and the clock is ticking for nations to reach consensus on a range of crunch issues. This is the time for major emitting nations, especially richer countries, to show leadership and negotiate in good faith to maintain trust and credibility. There are some hopes that the G20 summit happening simultaneously this week in Brazil can deliver some helpful climate breakthroughs from major economies that could contribute to advancing proceedings at COP.  

The major presence and influence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP29 continues to be alarming. As my colleague Kathy Mulvey notes: “Countries must resist any attempt by the fossil fuel industry to swindle funding that should rightly be put toward climate finance desperately needed by Global South nations.”   

The science is clear that without urgent collective action, the world could be on track for a catastrophic rise in global average temperatures of up to 3.1°C above pre-industrial levels this century. Meanwhile, extreme climate-fueled disasters—like hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States, devastating floods in Spain, and Typhoon Man-yi that just hit the Philippines—continue to batter people and economies around the world.  

As the final week marathon gets underway, UCS will join civil society colleagues to make sure the voice of the people is loud and present at COP29, and that world leaders feel the pressure to deliver science-aligned, ambitious, and equitable outcomes. We have already participated in press conferences (see here and here), engaged in direct advocacy with negotiators, and joined in public actions at COP29—all geared toward pushing forward our key asks.  

Cat sitting on cardboard house in Baku’s Old City. Ashley Siefert Nunes/UCS.

And for a more light-hearted take, check out the cats of Baku, who have also joined forces with us in meowing for more climate finance.  

Exclusive: Analyses are stark evidence of how global heating is already supercharging deadly weather beyond anything ever experienced by humanity

• How do we know that the climate crisis is to blame for extreme weather?

At least 24 previously impossible heatwaves have struck communities across the planet, a new assessment has shown, providing stark evidence of how severely human-caused global heating is supercharging extreme weather.

The impossible heatwaves have taken lives across North America, Europe and Asia, with scientific analyses showing that they would have had virtually zero chance of happening without the extra heat trapped by fossil fuel emissions.

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Carlos Cuerpo calls on G20 leaders to act and says election results show citizens want redistribution of wealth

Spain’s economy minister has urged the world’s richest countries to “be brave” and redouble efforts to reach an agreement on a global minimum tax on the world’s 3,000 billionaires, saying recent elections have shown citizens are demanding “redistribution of wealth”.

Speaking during a visit to London before the gathering of G20 leaders in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, Carlos Cuerpo said the plan had gained political momentum since the summer, when finance ministers agreed to work together to “ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed”.

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El presidente recorrió la selva tropical y prometió a Brasil fondos para iniciativas medioambientales, a pesar de que el gobierno de Trump parece dispuesto a hacerlas retroceder.

The president toured the rainforest and promised Brazil funds for environmental initiatives, even as the incoming Trump administration appears poised to roll them back.

Labor government ‘not acting in good faith’ when it stands on global stage and promotes its climate credentials, special envoy at Cop29 says

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Pacific governments at a UN climate summit are criticising Australia’s plans for a massive gas industry expansion in Western Australia, saying it could result in 125 times more greenhouse gas emissions than their island nations release in a year.

As the Cop29 summit in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku begins its second week, representatives from Vanuatu and Tuvalu have called on Australia to stop approving new fossil fuel developments, including a proposal to extend the life of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas facility until 2070.

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Minor party’s offer, which includes ban on native-forest logging, represents its second concession on stalled legislation in less than a week

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The Greens have dropped their demand for a climate trigger to be incorporated in the government’s stalled Nature Positive legislation, indicating they are now prepared to pass the bills in return for a Australia-wide ban on native-forest logging alone.

The party has previously refused to support Labor’s legislation, insisting that both a climate trigger and forest-logging ban must be included.

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Jochen Flasbarth called on Cop29 delegates to press on as world faces increasing crises and drop in solidarity

Governments meeting to forge a global settlement on climate finance must get over their differences this week and come to a deal – because if talks carry on until next year they stand little chance with Donald Trump in the White House, the German development minister has said.

Jochen Flasbarth, one of the most influential ministers at the UN Cop29 summit, said that if the final days of the summit did not produce a breakthrough countries would face a much tougher prospect.

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The U.N. climate summit in Azerbaijan has cleared the for way aid to flow when lower-income countries are hit.

Brad Plumer is reporting from Azerbaijan, where the annual U.N. climate summit got underway this week.

The grim negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, have shown the need for reform of the UN annual global climate talks

‘Global emissions continue to increase, carbon sinks are being degraded and we can no longer exclude the possibility of surpassing 2.9C of warming by 2100.” It is a bleak assessment of our planet’s future and could have been made by just about any environmental organisation on Earth.

In fact, they are the views of an international group of climate experts that highlight, in sharp detail, the manifest failings of the UN’s annual Cop climate summits, whose 29th iteration is now being staged in Baku, Azerbaijan. These talks, they said last week, are no longer fit for purpose and need an urgent overhaul.

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Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned good and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice

Prepping – I’m coming round to it. I’ve had Prepare, the old government website that Oliver Dowden launched this spring, open on my laptop in a quivering tab for a while now, and this week I’ve been dipping in every now and then to remind myself of “how to prepare for an emergency”. How many bottles of water we may need, tweezers, a sage reminder about the fact of tinned meat.

I’ve dabbled in prepping before, without really realising what I was doing. A fear in the early 2000s that Rimmel might stop making my favourite eyeliner led to me dashing to Boots to buy five. Which is fairly normal, I think? On the spectrum of normal? Sensible probably, when so many, as you’ll know, have brushes too fine or ink that disappears in rain. In the grip of lockdown, as supermarket deliveries were increasingly scarce, when I was blessed with a Tesco slot I would focus not on toilet paper or flour, but on treats. I’d stockpile the good biscuits, and, in my naivety, Biscoff spread. I remember there were very large gift bars of Galaxy chocolate on offer for a while, bars the size of a small dinghy which I would buy in bulk, nibbling away at the corners like a parasite. That was when we started decanting our pulses. Still, beside the microwave sits a proud wall of oversized Tupperware, carefully labelled in my six-year-old daughter’s handwriting: “spageti”, “green lenttles”, “ryce”. It felt good. I felt prepared, but for what, was unclear.

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PM seeks to reassure Australians about the fate of their businesses under US Trump administration

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Anthony Albanese is seeking to reassure Australian exporters about the fate of their businesses under an incoming US Trump administration, insisting he is confident they will be spared tariffs of up to 20% that the president-elect is threatening to impose.

The prime minister said on Sunday that he did not expect any US move to slap tariffs on incoming goods to include imports from Australia.

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Chris Wright is a TV-ready evangelist for fossil fuels who lacks government experience.

Wealthy nations are yet to offer the hundreds of billions of dollars that economists say are needed to help the developing world cut emissions

Leaders of the world’s biggest economies meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Monday must agree to provide the finance that the world’s poorest need to tackle the climate crisis or face “economic carnage”, the UN has warned.

The G20 nations are about to gather in Brazil for two days of talks, while many of their ministers remain in Azerbaijan where crucial negotiations at the Cop29 climate crisis summit have stalled. Rich countries’ governments have not yet put forward the offers of hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid that economists say are needed to help poorer countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather.

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American officials are seeking to assure the world that U.S. climate action won’t end with the return of Donald Trump as president.