So, we touched down in Baku! After a full day of travel and getting acclimated, we have begun to prepare for the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29).
This is my fourth COP, and I have many thoughts and things to attend to, and yet I still don’t know much about what each day will look like for me just yet. It took me two of these conferences to figure out what it is I’m doing here and why, and three to figure out how I can do these things well and care for myself and others around me.
I get to serve in the role as a house mother for the second year in a row with the Climate Generation delegation, and I am honored to be able to share what I know about this confusing, exciting, disheartening, invigorating, ridiculous, massive conference. I am excited to participate with folks who are experiencing it for the first time. To me, this means that part of my role is to make the house feel like home however I may and however folks need, offering an ear to vent to or get some questions answered from one of the various coalition spaces that I am in, and that, wherever I may, I should be connecting these brilliant folks with the global movement for climate justice.
As many may know, I am the Director of Youth N’Power and the Youth N’Power Network, a year-round, apprenticeship-modeled program for youth in Minneapolis and a network of young folks that are learning and/or working on becoming community organizers that operate through the lens of Environmental Justice. In another capacity, I am the Environmental Justice Youth Program Director and Global Climate Justice Coordinator with MN Interfaith Power & Light. I also get the pleasure of holding space in the U.S. Fair Shares Collaborative and national Climate Reparations Camp. To be at the crux of these spaces where environment, relationships, and just transition intersect is both a challenge and a blessing.
I have 10 apprentices in Minneapolis and 3 nationally, and this year, the second of my apprentices, Manny, is attending COP29 with our delegation. Now that I am starting to see connections between local and global movements, having some of the youth that I get to spend time with and mentor also learn to navigate this space feels really cool. And, it makes it clear how much is at stake and just how far behind our country is as it relates to the global movement to move towards a just future.
The UNFCCC and the Conference of Parties can certainly be a nightmare. And, it can also be a place where you make lifelong friends, understand how folks are actualizing real solutions to overlapping crises (in addition to climate), and build a much-needed global community.
I know in my spirit that building global community is the primary solution to these crises, because while we may be at a climate conference, the United Nations does not hold the solutions to what people and the planet experience.
Community holds the solutions. Community holds the solutions. Community holds the solutions. I say that as many times as I can, so that it becomes a concept that most people, especially Americans, understand. We have been led to believe that we must do individual action only in order to make practical change, and yet, we are at a conference where the COP29 host president in Azerbaijan has set up active deals to further fossil fuel production before day one even commences.
I find myself wondering to what end we are supposed to organize towards while these oil tycoons and governments continue making deals that line their pockets and further rocket us towards our own demise. This is the stuff of nightmares. And yet, we persist?
Today, on the day before the conference begins, Manny and I attended two meetings for coalition spaces: CAN-I (Climate Action Network International) and DCJ (The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice) members’ assembly. There were a few takeaways that I will be watching out for as the conference begins: CAN’s Fossil of the Day award — one of their major advocacy tools that call our UNFCCC parties (countries) blocking climate action and progress in negotiations based on the Network’s strategies and priorities. This is awarded to countries that are “doing their best at being the worst.” I know that the United States usually wins the award, and this adds to my personal shame about representing the country that is the highest historical emitter of Greenhouse Gases and the largest producer of Fossil Fuels, in the conference.
We also learned of a number of planned actions in support of and solidarity with Palestine, calling for an end to the genocide (and all genocides happening globally at present). Any action within the COP space must be sanctioned by the U.N., and it is imperative that anyone reading this understands that genocide is very much so an environmental and climate issue.
Knowing that some of the largest Environmental NGOs are standing in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized peoples and places reminds me why I do this work.
The second meeting we attended was for DCJ. We also talked through strategy, and the schedule of events for Palestine and other justice-focused initiatives. One of the scariest things i heard today, before the conference even begun, is that while we may be talking about staying below a 1.5 global average annual temperature increase, in actuality, we are looking at a 2 degree average increase by 2040 at the latest, and 3 degrees by the end of the century. That means that a child born today could live in a world that is unlivable, and the actions of our governments and these corporations are accelerating a future with an earth that can’t support life as we know it, or the lack of any future altogether.
The last thing I’ll add as we go into this COP is that it is a climate finance year. In order to ensure that we have some hope for a future for all generations, peoples, and planet, the Global North needs to pay its Fair Share of climate finance to the Global South. That figure is something to the tune of $5 Trillion per year. For the U.S., our Fair Share is 46% of that, or 446 Billion Dollars, annually.
This figure is one that has grown as polluting countries have continued to pollute and destroy all of existence, and the Global South calls for us to begin the process of reparation. The narratives surrounding reparations have been debated for too long, and while year after year and conference after conference, we somehow never can find the money to do so, our nation somehow finds the money to send so that atrocious harms can continue.
This reality is one that most Americans refuse to understand, acknowledge, or talk about, and so in my fourth go-around, I hear the same two questions rising to the surface: Is the Global North going to pay its Fair Share and repair harm? For the Global South is paying from their own pockets and with their lives and livelihoods, and we still treat the climate crisis as a conversation for activists only, where I come from. Will we be able to see a future for the next seven generations, or will we fail time and again, to change our understanding of what needs to happen in the present? These are my thoughts as I go forth into Day 1 of Week 1, of a conference that has happened every year of my life since my birth, and still hasn’t figured out how to fix these issues.
Analyah is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos is a young Afro-Brazilian-American woman born and raised in North Minneapolis, Minnesota. After living in Atlanta, Georgia, she moved back to Minneapolis in 2015 to study Global Relations and Environmental Justice at the University of Minnesota and the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs. She has been an aquatic guide to all ages for 12 years and counting and loves to infuse environmental wellness into her frameworks.
She is currently the International Campaign lead at MN Interfaith Power & Light, and serves on the board of multiple local organizations.
The post Context, Priorities, and Plans for COP29 appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
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.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
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Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in the lowest-risk areas and the host country can claim all available discounts. The share of credits rises significantly in regions with high natural risk values, such as Guyana, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, or that do not have REDD+ programmes.
These factors could change in the future as the Supervisory Body asked its technical experts to recommend revisiting the risk values “should credible new evidence arise”.
Climate change is likely to make forest destruction events, such as wildfires or hurricanes, more frequent and more severe in certain regions. Meanwhile, national policies on forest protection can shift significantly depending on government changes.
Johnstone said the UN carbon market needs periodic reassessment to respond to new evidence showing that previously assumed levels of risk were too low.
“The integrity of credits is not guaranteed simply because a reversal risk tool exists,