Future of Climate Change Negotiations Emerging Clues from the COP29

This article penned by Dr Vibha Dhawan and Mr R. R. Rashmi highlights the major takeaways of the recently concluded COP29. It serves the dual purpose of both light and sight. The authors' unbiased analysis reinforces our comprehension of the shortcomings of the environment summit that gave rise to the consequential outcomes. They opinethe most relevant COP in the coming years will be the COP 2028. As India has proposed to host the COP in 2028, it will have to play a decisive role not only in shaping the character of emerging global governance of climate change, but also in bringing together the international community against the climate change.

- Dr Vibha Dhawan

The 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held recently in Baku, Azerbaijan concluded with the usual intensity attached with climate conferences. However, its outcomes have raised more concerns about the future of global climate change efforts than the solutions it has offered. The Conference was marked by the visible absence of several important leaders of the world reflecting the changed priorities of key stakeholders in the emerging geopolitical dynamics. This impacted, from the very beginning, the possibility of ambitious outcomes on issues that required heightened political engagement of key stakeholders in such negotiations.

Two key decisions emerging from the Baku Conference are those relating to the New and Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance and the carbon markets covered under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Several other issues, equally important to advancing the climate actions at the global level, were discussed at the Conference but the decisions reached can at best be considered sub optimal and in the nature of 'kicking the can down the road. Some of these issues related to the UAE dialogue on Just Transition, global stocktake, mitigation work programme, finance for adaptation, global goal on adaptation, and loss and damage fund. A comprehensive and balanced decision on all issues on agenda is what a Presidency would usually attempt in the interest of effective implementation of the obligations of parties to the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement. But the Azerbaijan Presidency had apparently downgraded its expectations from the conference from the very beginning as was evident from its intention to avoid the conventional 'cover decision'. A cover decision is a standard practice aimed at aggregating and highlighting the key aspects of multiple decisions taken at the Conference but was absent in the Baku decisions.