The UN Cop 29 climate summit president Mukhtar Babayev reiterated today that a new climate finance goal for developing countries is the priority of the summit, while UN climate body UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell urged parties "to move forward on mitigation".
The new climate finance goal for developing countries must be effective and adequate to the scale and urgency of the problem," Babayev said at the Cop 29 opening plenary.
Parties to the Paris Agreement this year need to decide on a new finance goal for developing nations — funded by developed nations — 15 years after the current $100bn/yr goal was agreed. Most parties agree that the current target falls short of what is needed for developing countries to finance their energy transition and adapt to climate change, but developed nations have yet to put a new number forward. Developing countries called for a floor of at least $1 trillion/yr.
Stiell at the plenary also asked parties to agree on the new finance goal, the so-called new collective quantified goal (NCQG). "If at least two thirds of the world's nations cannot afford to cut emissions quickly, then every nation pays a brutal price," he said. But he also urged countries to maintain momentum on mitigation — action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — "so targets from Dubai are realised". "Clean energy and infrastructure investment will reach two trillion dollars in 2024. Almost twice that of fossil fuels," he said.
Babayev said that the Cop 29 presidency is "determined to get the article 6 [mechanism of the Paris accord] over the line." Whether parties can agree rules to unlock carbon markets under article 6 of the Paris accord will be key this year, after countries failed to do so in 2023. Some progress was noted this year — including the article 6.4 supervisory body adopting standards on methodologies and greenhouse gas removal — with parties expected to endorse them at Cop 29.
