COP29 talks on measures to cut emissions and progress a landmark agreement on “transitioning away from fossil fuels” had to be rescued from the brink of collapse by the COP presidency after opposition from oil-rich Saudi Arabia and some other developing countries.
Countries failed to reach an agreement on mitigation over the weekend and a decision was taken to postpone talks until next year. But COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev announced efforts to restore talks on Monday at a plenary, backed by many countries supporting a strong outcome in Baku this week.
“COP29 cannot and will not be silent on mitigation. We will address the matter [in] every direction,” Babayev told the COP plenary.
Governments have struggled to reaffirm a pledge first agreed at COP28 last year to “transition away from fossil fuels” in other agreements this year. It was left out of a climate and biodiversity decision at last month’s COP16 in Cali and reports suggested it also struggled to make it into the G20 ministerial statement.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, former COP president and WWF climate and energy lead, said finance for the energy transition will play a key role in unlocking progress on mitigation, as developing countries called for funding for the energy transition.
“After a faltering first week, Parties now have a second chance to work together and build consensus around the climate solutions we need to reduce emissions quickly. It is essential that this COP sends a strong signal that countries need to raise their game on emission reductions,” Pulgar-Vidal said in a statement.
Brink of collapse
Late on Saturday, when many COP29 delegates were letting their hair down after a long first week, negotiators failed to agree on a path forward for discussions on cutting emissions.
A coalition of developed countries, small island states, the least developed countries (LDCs) and some Latin American nations want to discuss how to take forward last year’s global commitment to transition away from fossil fuels through the so-called Mitigation Work Programme, a negotiating track set up at COP26 in 2021 with the goal of enhancing efforts to cut emissions.
They had pushed to set up an emissions-cutting “ facilitation process and platform” and “urge” governments to do things like stop building new coal-fired power plants and phase out (not just, as previously agreed, phase down) coal, according to observers.
The coalition wanted to set numerical targets for reducing methane emissions, curbing deforestation, increasing energy storage and improving grids to enable the roll-out of renewable energy.
But, speaking in Saturday night’s plenary, Saudi Arabia said this was an attempt at “eroding the flexibility developing countries depend on” and that there should be no new targets or goals.
Bolivia, speaking on behalf of the LMDC group which includes China, also rejected “targets and outlandish proposals”. Iran and India supported this, with India saying that the talks’ conclusions were supposed to be “non prescriptive”. The African group also rejected “attempts to impose new requirements”.
With governments divided over the purpose of the talks, their co-chairs suggested on Saturday not continuing the mitigation negotiations into the second week and delaying them for six months until the mid-year climate talks in the German city of Bonn. That would have meant scrapping all the work done in the first week. A consensus could not be reached to carry on with the talks in Baku.
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said Saudi Arabia wants to be as “unconstructive as they can be when it comes to fossil fuels” and is “happy to be destructive”. He added that civil society “disagrees” with this stance because there is a need to talk about implementing last year’s decisions on energy transition as well as financing arrangements for that to happen including through the new climate finance goal.
Presidency steps in
On Monday, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said he would make efforts to prevent the talks from collapsing, appointing ministers from Norway and South Africa to consult countries on the way forward.
At a plenary session, several countries expressed disappointment with the state of the mitigation talks, saying a strong outcome on emission-cutting measures was a priority for them. They also refused to postpone discussions until next year.
Australia, on behalf of the Umbrella Group of developed countries, said “some parties consistently blocked” progress and welcomed the presidency’s efforts to keep the talks going.
The AOSIS group of small islands said they would not leave Baku without “a strong mitigation outcome”. “The fact that those discussions are stalled is extremely concerning for our group,” a negotiator from Samoa told the COP plenary.
The COP president said his team will run consultations with countries, which will be facilitated by Norway and South Africa and will conclude by Wednesday. He also ruled out the possibility of a cover text, which is a high-profile general statement signed off by all governments but not linked to any particular strand of the negotiations.
New climate plans
Speaking at the Monday plenary, Switzerland noted that decisions made in Baku on mitigation will serve to inform the next round of national climate plans, which are due to be submitted by early next year. “It’s not acceptable that in the very body meant to reduce emissions we do not have a clear message going forward,” the Swiss negotiator said.
The European Union waded into the debate on Monday afternoon, with its climate commissioner Hoekstra saying it was “imperative” to send a strong signal from Baku to inform the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs). “We must follow on our historic decision in Dubai to truly transition away from fossil fuels,” he added.
He praised the announcements of 2035 emissions reduction goals from the UAE, Brazil and the UK before and during COP29 as “positive and promising”.
He also added that the EU would put together an ambitious NDC in line with the 1.5C warming limit, and is on the right track, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 8% in 2023, compared to the previous year. “We need – and we will continue to keep the pace,” he said, without clarifying when the EU’s updated NDC would land.
(Reporting by Sebastian Rodriguez; editing by Matteo Civillini)
The post Fossil fuel transition talks rescued from brink of collapse at COP29 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Fossil fuel transition talks rescued from brink of collapse at COP29
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.”
-ENDS-
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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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
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The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.