By Gloria Dickie
LONDON (Reuters) – Less than two months ahead of the COP29 United Nations climate summit, Azerbaijani leadership on Tuesday set out its plans for what it hoped to achieve, as countries continue to grapple with how to raise ambitions for a new financing target .
The main task of the November summit is for countries to agree on a new annual target for financing that rich countries will pay to help poorer countries cope with climate change. Many developing countries say they cannot accelerate their emissions reduction targets without first receiving more financial support to invest in them.
With countries still far from reaching an agreement on the financing target, the COP29 presidency this week outlined more than a dozen side initiatives that could boost ambitions but do not require party negotiations and consensus building that could slow progress to obstruct. These take the form of new funds, commitments and declarations that national governments can adopt.
In particular, this includes a fund with voluntary contributions from fossil fuel producing countries and public and private sector companies dealing with climate issues, as well as grants that can be distributed to help with climate-induced natural disasters in developing countries.
Such side agendas leverage “the rallying power of the COP and the respective national capacities of host countries to build coalitions and make progress,” said Mukhtar Babayev, who holds the rotating COP presidency, in a letter to all parties and stakeholders .
For example, more than 120 countries pledged to triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030 at last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai.
The COP29 presidency also hopes to build support around a pledge to increase global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, to 1,500 gigawatts by 2030. This would include a commitment to scale up investment in energy networks, through more than adding or renovating 80 million kilometers of energy networks. (50 million miles) by 2040.
Babayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, said the agenda would “help increase ambition by bringing stakeholders together around common principles and goals.”
“We hope to address some of the most pressing issues while highlighting remaining priorities,” he said.
Another explanation would see countries and companies create a global market for clean hydrogen, addressing regulatory, technology, financing and standardization barriers.
COP29 leaders have also called for a ‘COP truce’ that would emphasize the importance of peace and climate action.
Despite countries’ existing climate commitments, CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels reached a record high last year, and the world has just recorded its hottest summer on record as temperatures rise.
