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
Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.
Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.
Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.
He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.
The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.
Another case of diluted green rules?
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”.
The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.
“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.
While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.
EU and UK stand by SAF targets
But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.
“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.
SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel.
Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.
David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.
“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.
Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.
Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters
In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.
David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.
The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
SAF and energy security
SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.
Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.
Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.
Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.
He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.
The post Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn
Climate Change
Southern Right Whales Are Having Fewer Calves; Scientists Say a Warming Ocean Is to Blame
After decades of recovery from commercial whaling, climate change is now threatening the whales’ future.
Southern right whales—once driven to near-extinction by industrial hunting in the 19th and 20th centuries—have long been regarded as a conservation success. After the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in the 1980s, populations began a slow but steady rebound. New research, however, suggests climate change may be undermining that recovery.
Southern Right Whales Are Having Fewer Calves; Scientists Say a Warming Ocean Is to Blame
Climate Change
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
The Lincolnshire constituency held by Richard Tice, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of the hard-right Reform party, has been pledged at least £55m in government funding for flood defences since 2024.
This investment in Boston and Skegness is the second-largest sum for a single constituency from a £1.4bn flood-defence fund for England, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Flooding is becoming more likely and more extreme in the UK due to climate change.
Yet, for years, governments have failed to spend enough on flood defences to protect people, properties and infrastructure.
The £1.4bn fund is part of the current Labour government’s wider pledge to invest a “record” £7.9bn over a decade on protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from flooding.
As MP for one of England’s most flood-prone regions, Tice has called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
He is also one of Reform’s most vocal opponents of climate action and what he calls “net stupid zero”. He denies the scientific consensus on climate change and has claimed, falsely and without evidence, that scientists are “lying”.
Flood defences
Last year, the government said it would invest £2.65bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) schemes in England between April 2024 and March 2026.
This money was intended to protect 66,500 properties from flooding. It is part of a decade-long Labour government plan to spend more than £7.9bn on flood defences.
There has been a consistent shortfall in maintaining England’s flood defences, with the Environment Agency expecting to protect fewer properties by 2027 than it had initially planned.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has attributed this to rising costs, backlogs from previous governments and a lack of capacity. It also points to the strain from “more frequent and severe” weather events, such as storms in recent years that have been amplified by climate change.
However, the CCC also said last year that, if the 2024-26 spending programme is delivered, it would be “slightly closer to the track” of the Environment Agency targets out to 2027.
The government has released constituency-level data on which schemes in England it plans to fund, covering £1.4bn of the 2024-26 investment. The other half of the FCERM spending covers additional measures, from repairing existing defences to advising local authorities.
The map below shows the distribution of spending on FCERM schemes in England over the past two years, highlighting the constituency of Richard Tice.
By far the largest sum of money – £85.6m in total – has been committed to a tidal barrier and various other defences in the Somerset constituency of Bridgwater, the seat of Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
Over the first months of 2026, the south-west region has faced significant flooding and Fox has called for more support from the government, citing “climate patterns shifting and rainfall intensifying”.
He has also backed his party’s position that “the 2050 net-zero target is impossible” and called for more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
Tice’s east-coast constituency of Boston and Skegness, which is highly vulnerable to flooding from both rivers and the sea, is set to receive £55m. Among the supported projects are beach defences from Saltfleet to Gibraltar Point and upgrades to pumping stations.
Overall, Boston and Skegness has the second-largest portion of flood-defence funding, as the chart below shows. Constituencies with Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs occupied the other top positions.
Overall, despite Labour MPs occupying 347 out of England’s 543 constituencies – nearly two-thirds of the total – more than half of the flood-defence funding was distributed to constituencies with non-Labour MPs. This reflects the flood risk in coastal and rural areas that are not traditional Labour strongholds.
Reform funding
While Reform has just eight MPs, representing 1% of the population, its constituencies have been assigned 4% of the flood-defence funding for England.
Nearly all of this money was for Tice’s constituency, although party leader Nigel Farage’s coastal Clacton seat in Kent received £2m.
Reform UK is committed to “scrapping net-zero” and its leadership has expressed firmly climate-sceptic views.
Much has been made of the disconnect between the party’s climate policies and the threat climate change poses to its voters. Various analyses have shown the flood risk in Reform-dominated areas, particularly Lincolnshire.
Tice has rejected climate science, advocated for fossil-fuel production and criticised Environment Agency flood-defence activities. Yet, he has also called for more investment in flood defences, stating that “we cannot afford to ‘surrender the fens’ to the sea”.
This may reflect Tice’s broader approach to climate change. In a 2024 interview with LBC, he said:
“Where you’ve got concerns about sea level defences and sea level rise, guess what? A bit of steel, a bit of cement, some aggregate…and you build some concrete sea level defences. That’s how you deal with rising sea levels.”
While climate adaptation is viewed as vital in a warming world, there are limits on how much societies can adapt and adaptation costs will continue to increase as emissions rise.
The post Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Constituency of Reform’s climate-sceptic Richard Tice gets £55m flood funding
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