Gregory Autin | November 25, 2024
“It would be so easy now, and so tempting, to dismiss #COP29 – or the entire COP process – as a failure”, said a prominent expert on sustainability business practices and advisor to the UNFCCC. “Not only would that be intellectually lazy, but also irresponsible”, he continued.
The developed countries committed to providing at least $300 billion by 2035 to support developing countries in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the consequences of climate change. The new target replaces the previous one agreed at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, when the developed countries committed to providing $100 billion by 2020 – a target that was not reached until 2022.
A week earlier, the G20 leaders reaffirmed the need to rapidly and substantially scale up climate finance from billions to trillions. The final COP29 deal falls well short of this, with just $300 billion annually from a variety of sources by 2035 and no firm commitment on a public finance core.
The omission of any reference to fossil fuel divestment in the Brazilian G20 leaders' declaration could undo a very significant, if only symbolic, victory achieved at last year's climate conference in Dubai. The efforts by oil states to row back from the fossil fuel phase-out agreement were frustrated and unsuccessful, despite a push to establish a process and platform to “facilitate emissions reductions” and “urge” governments to do such things as stop building new coal-fired power plants and phase out coal, not just phase down as previously agreed.
With the advance of doubters and climate deniers and their enablers around the world, we should be indeed most thankful and humbly accept the concessions of the polluters and polluting nations. Anything else is considered “intellectually lazy” and, worse still, “irresponsible”. We should stop being so critical and be satisfied with that!
