COP29: Countries Make Some—but Not Enough—Progress on Addressing Climate Change

At their high-stakes annual negotiations on how to address climate change, world leaders made some progress but failed to agree on changes at a scale and pace needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – the core goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

A familiar mix of celebration and disappointment marked the close of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 29th conference (COP29), which ran 11-22 November in Baku, Azerbaijan. Here are some of the key outcomes of the meeting:

Finance

Nations agreed to a new global climate finance goal of $300 billion annually by 2035, which developed countries will need to raise to support climate action by developing countries. This figure is far from the annual financing that developing countries had requested to support their transition to clean energy and to build climate resilience, which experts placed at upwards of $1 trillion. The new figure represents a threefold increase from the $100 billion annual funding goal that governments agreed to in 2009 and that they met for the first time in 2022.

In addition to this primary $300 billion goal, the new financing decision also calls on “all actors” to work together to scale up financing to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, including broader contributions from multilateral development banks, the private sector and other sources. Because many of these prospective funders are nongovernmental, this second goal carries less accountability for governments than the $300 billion target but is nonetheless important: Parties recognize that without such massive financing, they won’t be able to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Governments agreed to flesh out over the coming year how they plan to deliver on this $1.3 trillion goal through a new “Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T,” which leaders say will include specific actions and financial benchmarks. Belem is the Brazilian city that will host COP30 next year.

The scale of the financing target underscores the urgency of addressing climate change – with extreme weather events increasing in frequency and severity around the world – but also falls short of the amounts that are truly needed to support developing countries’ energy transition and climate adaptation plans under the Paris deal.

Adaptation

Negotiators at COP29 also discussed the global goal on adaptation (GGA), which commits Paris Agreement Parties to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change worldwide. COP29 marked the halfway point of a two-year effort to develop indicators to measure Parties’ progress towards achieving the GGA in a range of areas, including ecosystems, food and agriculture, infrastructure and health. In Baku, Parties agreed to prepare this suite of indicators – which might include such benchmarks as the number of nature-based solutions for adaptation projects implemented or measuring adoption of disaster risk considerations in infrastructure designs – with the aim of considering and approving a slate of no more than 100 indicators next year at COP30 in Brazil. These indicators will help Parties track progress in their national adaptation plans (NAPs) and inform future global stocktakes – the assessments every five years of how well countries are collectively meeting the aims of the Paris Agreement.

Under the Paris Agreement, Parties are expected to have NAPs in place by 2025 and to have made progress in implementing them by 2030.

The Road to Belem

The months leading up to COP30 are a crucial time for countries to step up their efforts to prepare their domestic climate plans, namely the NAPs to prepare for climate impacts and nationally determined contributions to reduce emissions.

With the adoption of a climate finance goal in Baku – albeit one that disappointed many – COP29 negotiators have signaled support for those most affected by climate change. Now, countries must take concrete steps to meet the $300 billion annual funding goal. Discussions in Belem must make tangible progress on this front, including ensuring equitable access to finance for developing countries.

Despite the challenges with agreeing upon amounts, the climate finance decision in Baku – and the debate around it – reflects a growing understanding that time is indeed running short to stave off the worst-case climate change scenarios. The choice that world leaders face now is to either confront the challenge with rapid emissions reductions, major climate adaptation initiatives and a just energy transition – or to concede defeat and await the escalating impacts of a changing climate. Every other option is a false choice.

Courtney Durham Shane is a senior officer and Ellen Ward is an officer with Pew’s conservation support team.