Dr. Sindra Sharma is senior policy advisor at Pacific Climate Action Network, Shady Khalil is global policy senior strategist at Oil Change International, and Andreas Sieber is associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org.
At the COP28 climate summit last year, nations took a historic step by agreeing to call on each other to transition away from fossil fuels and pledging to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030.
COP29 starts next week in Azerbaijan. It is rightfully positioned as a financial COP and is the opportunity to make significant progress on paying for this transition. At the same time, it must build on the outcomes from last year’s Global Stocktake , and further steps on emissions cuts and energy transition urgently.
The president of Azerbaijan has called fossil fuels a “gift from god” rather than providing proposals on how to transition away from them. Thankfully, several more progressive governments have been stepping up instead – openly or behind the scenes – to advance proposals and ideas to implement the transition to renewable energy. Here’s what we need from COP29:
No new fossil fuels
As we approach COP29, governments’ current UN climate plans (NDCs) put the planet on track to reach 2.6-2.8C of warming. To avoid this catastrophe, rich countries must lead the energy transition with the urgency the crisis demands or the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C will slip out of our hands, exacerbating the extreme climate events already intensifying worldwide.
Science leaves no ambiguity: all NDC climate plans must commit to ending new oil, gas and coal project approvals. The International Energy Agency calculates that fossil fuel production must decline 55% by 2035 to align with the 1.5C limit.
It’s important to remember that just five rich countries – the US, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK – are responsible for more than half of all planned oil and gas expansion.
Oil Change International’s analysis of data from Rystad Energy (July 2023)
But the presidencies of COP28, COP29 and COP30 (UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil) have a particular responsibility to align with climate action and ambition. Despite this, research from Oil Change International shows that collectively these countries plan to increase oil and gas production by about a third by 2035 .
They need to rise to the challenge and draw inspiration from countries like Colombia, which have halted new oil and gas exploration and prioritized climate action and the lives of billions of people over short-term profits.
Finance goal
If we want to see a truly just and equitable transition to renewable energy, the new post-2025 climate finance goal being negotiated at COP29 must deliver on the scale of finance, across sub-goals of emissions cuts (mitigation), adapting to climate change (adaptation) and loss and damage.
We must also see progressive reform around policy, debt, fossil fuel subsidies and transparency mechanisms, including monitoring and tracking. The success of COP29 hinges on agreeing to an ambitious new financial goal of trillions every year, in grants not just loans.
Global South countries are facing a worst-in-history debt and inequality crisis that is blocking climate action. Communities need real support for climate adaptation and mitigation, not more debt. The good news is that governments can find the money by ending fossil fuel handouts, making big polluters pay,
Cover Decision
Most COP summits agree on a headline text called a cover decision, which gets branded according to where it is held – the Glasgow Agreement or the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan. These cover decisions have become pivotal political signals from COPs. Azerbaijan has shown no signs of preparing one but must do so to cement steps forward.
Any cover decision should aim to affirm the COP28 outcome, mandate that the next round of NDC climate plans end the expansion of fossil fuels, and specify equitable phaseout dates for their production and use.
While nations have pledged to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5C, current NDCs fall short of that goal. It is unthinkable to accept this as inevitable. Therefore, the cover decision should empower COP30 to demand further revisions if collective NDCs do not align with the Paris Agreement’s climate targets.
Global Clean Power Alliance
The energy transition landscape is crowded with initiatives, from Just Energy Transition Partnerships and multilateral funds to alliances like Beyond Oil and Gas and Powering Past Coal.
Yet, these efforts remain less than the sum of their parts. At COP29, the UK and several partners are set to launch the Global Clean Power Alliance, an initiative intended to address this fragmentation including through a “finance mission”.
While unlikely to bridge the vast and drastically underestimated energy support gap on its own for a true energy transition, the Global Clean Power Alliance could be a promising development if it manages to mobilize additional resources, foster true coordination and ensure that Global South nations take leadership roles.
Crucially, to be a legitimate initiative supporting the energy transition, the Alliance must not only aim to scale up renewables — without replicating the harmful nature of extractive industries — but make actively phasing out fossil fuels a cornerstone of its vision.
Institutionalize energy transition
While the COP28 energy decision was unprecedented, it currently lacks a clear home within the UN climate process where its implementation can be discussed and taken forward. The UN climate negotiations need to institutionalize ways to put the energy and other transitions into practice.
There is a negotiating track called the ‘Mitigation Work Programme’ – but it has failed to be the productive space we need it to be. Unlocking this space with a meaningful outcome at COP29 will demand bold leadership and bridge-building to overcome entrenched resistance, especially from countries like Saudi Arabia , which have actively obstructed substantive outcomes.
Similarly, wealthy developed nations have diluted the ‘Just Transition Work Programme’ by insisting on the exclusion of the international dimension of this transition and avoiding their historic responsibility for causing climate change.
Plans to turn Europe’s biggest coal mine into a leisure lake prove divisive
Brazil has stepped forward with an initial proposal : transforming the Mitigation Work Program from a negotiating forum into an implementation-focused body with a concrete focus on the energy transition.
This is the kind of leadership COP29 desperately needs, but Brazil must be prepared to defend its vision against expected swift opposition from Saudi Arabia. As we look to COP30 in Belém, Brazil’s political resolution will be crucial to keeping the energy transition on course. Floating bold ideas without putting one’s weight behind them as the future COP presidency is political theater not leadership. Brazil can and should be one of the first countries to lead.
True climate leadership requires the courage to confront fossil fuel dependency head-on and to invest deeply in the energy transition and provide the finance for it. Last year saw the UN climate process take a big step in the right direction. At COP29, we can further normalize and institutionalize the energy transition in this critical multilateral space.
The post COP29 must deliver on the world’s energy transition promises appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP29 must deliver on the world’s energy transition promises
Governments at the COP17 nature summit in Armenia agreed on Saturday to scale up their policies to protect the planet’s shrinking biodiversity, and for the first time invited large emerging economies like China and Gulf states to take on donor responsibilities to help fund those efforts.
For the past two weeks, countries held talks in Yerevan under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to outline a plan to ramp up currently “insufficient” policies to conserve land and marine ecosystems. A recent UN progress report found the world is off track to meet 22 out of 23 global targets aimed at reversing species loss and protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030.
While a response plan, called the “Global Review of Collective Progress”, was expected to be the main outcome of COP17, negotiations struggled to advance amid a deadlock over the controversial subject of how to finance the boost in conservation measures needed.
After an all-night session on Friday, delegates agreed to invite developing countries to voluntarily signal their interest in assuming donor funding obligations alongside developed nations. Negotiators repeatedly warned that any stronger provisions on expanding the donor base would collapse the deal.
COP president: Results beat expectations
An exhausted COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, Armenia’s environment minister, told journalists in the early hours of Saturday that “we’ve achieved more than we could’ve expected” given the “importance” of the decisions being taken.
“It was 100% possible that those items did not made it through. 100% possible,” he said, adding that the conference had made progress on “all the most important items”.
Speaking at the closing plenary, the group of Pacific Islands said that, while the summit had achieved “great outcomes”, delegates are also departing Yerevan “with realities not reflected in the official text”, such as the low replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a key funder of nature projects.
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Some observers also said the deal did not go far enough. Steven Guilbeault, a former Canadian environment minister who helped broker the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), said the Yerevan package of action is “an important step forward”, but still “falls short of what is needed to meet our 2030 commitments”.
An Lambrechts, biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International, said COP17 had kept things moving forward and set well-intentioned promises, but added that these “won’t remove major roadblocks to implementation” such as insufficient finance and debt constraints in developing countries.
WWF chief conservation officer Daudi Sumba noted that financial issues were not fully resolved. Despite the deal in Yerevan, “I fear finance will remain the key issue that continues to haunt the UN biodiversity summits,” he said in a statement.
‘Yerevan Pathway’ tackles nature plans and subsidies
In the lead-up to the summit, the UN assessment report showed countries are falling short on virtually all targets in the GBF, the 2022 global deal often referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.
They include a landmark target to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030. If countries all stick to their current national goals, about 26% of land would be protected and only about 12% of marine ecosystems would be under conservation measures.
The main COP17 decision – named the Yerevan Pathway by the presidency – calls for countries to revise their biodiversity plans, subject to available funding, with a particular focus on addressing the gap in coverage of “marine, coastal and inland water ecosystems”.
It also urges the over 60 countries who have not submitted a biodiversity plan yet to finalise them “as soon as possible” and taking into account the gaps identified by the UN progress report.
Countries also agreed to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss by “accelerating” the reduction of subsidies for activities that damage nature. Subsidy reform, covered by Target 18 of the GBF, is where countries have made the least progress so far, according to the assessment report.
Jill Hepp, director of nature and marine policy and incentives at green group Conservation International, said singling out subsidies in the Yerevan Pathway “gives a strong signal” that closing the gap for biodiversity action requires “more urgent efforts to reform harmful incentives and scale up positive incentives”.
“Timid” steps to expand base of donors
Having failed to meet a target to channel $20 billion for biodiversity conservation by 2025 and faced with shrinking aid budgets, the EU pushed a proposal to expand the list of which countries count as donors, so that wealthy emerging economies like China and Saudi Arabia could also voluntarily contribute. The group of Arab nations strongly opposed this.
During the talks, Irish minister of state for nature, Christopher O’Sullivan, whose country holds the EU presidency, said the bloc wanted the world’s “new realities” to be reflected in the donor list.
Negotiations remained gridlocked for most of the two-week talks, until a last-day compromise was struck to invite developing countries that may want donor status “to indicate to the [Convention on Biological Diversity] secretariat their interest in being included in the corresponding list”.
Countries also asked the secretariat to send an invitation to emerging economies wanting donor status at each subsequent COP, and requested a technical report on “the implications of inclusion in the list” for emerging economies.
Swiss lead negotiator Gabriela Blatter said during one of the sessions that her country had expected greater steps towards expanding the base of contributing countries, but added that “if we’re mutually unhappy, it’s probably the closest we can get on these very delicate political compromises”. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, also noted their dissatisfaction but said it had expected “a lot less”.
The fragile deal was approved in a package of decisions together with the Global Review, after some delegations including Brazil and China appealed to the plenary not to make further changes to the text at the risk of collapsing the whole agreement.
In a statement delivered to the closing plenary, the EU said the finance outcome had delivered “timid” progress towards fully broadening the base of donors.
Cali Fund still not operational
Adopted two years ago at COP16, the Cali Fund was seen by some observers as a way to channel private-sector finance into biodiversity conservation, as governments struggle to find public funds. But it is still struggling to get up on its feet.
The fund allows big corporations to access certificates for the use of genetic material found in biodiversity in return for a financial contribution, which experts estimate has the potential to raise up to $6.9bn for biodiversity. While voluntary, companies are encouraged to pay 1% of their profits or 0.1% of revenue into the fund.
But since its creation, the fund has received little more than $10,000, which Guilbeault argued is because the rules for disbursements to local communities and the operation of the fund had yet to be fleshed out. This was due to happen at COP17.
Yet, while the final decision on the fund laid out some of the rules – including how companies can earn “Cali Fund certificates” – some key technical details were left to the next COP in 2028 in Ecuador. This includes the issue of whether companies can pay a lower rate if they use genetic data for only a small portion of their products.
“By punting essential decisions to two years from now, parties have all but ensured the fund remains empty until then,” said Pakhi Das, a public policy advisor at NGO Plant-for-the-Planet.
The post COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 delivers fragile deal to boost conservation and funding for nature
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this