- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Amid all the noise around the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, it can be easy to lose sight of the negotiations and the core legal process at the summit.
This process often fades into the background, hidden from sight in closed-door negotiating rooms and late-night sessions, where diplomats – and then ministers – hash out their disagreements.
However, COP29 will culminate in a set of legal decisions, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its associated Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.
This set of legal texts lies at the heart of COP29 – and every other UN climate summit.
Negotiations over these documents are often fraught – and always closely fought. They can even be tripped up by a single misplaced word. A “shall” in place of a “should” – denoting a binding versus a non-binding requirement – nearly derailed the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Carbon Brief always takes a close interest in this process, attempting to scrutinise the hundreds of pages of draft negotiating text, as they evolve over the course of each two-week summit.
In order to keep track of these negotiating texts at COP29, Carbon Brief has created the interactive table below, which will be constantly updated, in close-to-real time.
Reading from left to right, the first column shows the topic of each document, for example, the “new collective quantified goal” on climate finance or Article 6 carbon markets.
Readers can search for keywords using the text box or reorder the entries by date or other columns. Carbon Brief will add notes to highlight key elements in each draft.
Typically, a draft negotiating text might begin its journey as a loose series of bullet points, written by a pair of negotiators appointed to lead a particular part of the talks.
These documents might be described as an “elements text” or – in the case of the first draft of the COP28 text on the global stocktake – as “building blocks”.
Later, text is turned into formal legal language. At this point, areas of disagreement are denoted with [square brackets], meaning the bracketed text has not yet been agreed by all parties.
Alternatively, the negotiating text might set out a series of “options” or “alt” text, with parties able to choose between a number of different passages that offer alternative formulations of words.
For example, the NCQG climate-finance negotiations have already reached the stage of a “substantive framework for a draft negotiating text”, published ahead of COP29.
This is written in legal language and currently includes 173 square brackets, as well as six “options”, across just nine pages of text. However, it does not yet have the formal status of a “draft text”.
Importantly, the lexicon of UN legal drafting is carefully calibrated and includes a “crescendo” of words, depending on how strong the drafters would like it to be.
In Glasgow at COP26, for example, there was a period of confusion over whether the word “request” was a stronger instruction than “urge” (it is).
Where agreement proves difficult to find, parties or the negotiators leading each process may propose “bridging text”. This is an attempt to find a way through apparently incompatible preferences on the way towards a final “landing zone” that will be acceptable to all parties.
Although it is not a foolproof measure, texts with many square brackets or options tend to be an indicator of a high level of disagreement between parties. For this reason, the table above is colour-coded according to the number of outstanding brackets under each agenda item.
On the other hand, some of the most difficult-to-resolve issues may revolve around a single word or passage of text.
Disagreements over one topic may get caught up in the “four-dimensional spaghetti” of countries’ competing priorities, with these potentially being used as bargaining chips or tradeoffs as part of a wider “package” of agreement over multiple issues.
At this point, it is common for parties to complain that an individual text – or an overall package – lacks “balance”, meaning their priorities get insufficient attention relative to the priorities of others.
As draft texts progress through the course of the summit, they are discussed in “contact groups” for each topic, which may devolve into “informal” negotiations, “informal informals”, “drafting groups” or – towards the business end of the summit – small “huddles” of key players in any disagreement.
As parties narrow down the options and brackets, towards the end of each summit, they start to generate “clean” texts, which contain no areas of disagreement and can be converted into “draft decisions”, that are ready for formal adoption at the closing plenary of the meeting.
Finally, at the closing plenary, each draft decision must be gavelled through by the COP president, signifying its formal adoption as a legal agreement and outcome of the summit.
Words by Simon Evans. Tracker built by Verner Viisainen.
The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP29 climate summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP29 climate summit
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet t