- 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
Since arriving here at COP29, I’ve been thinking about the different reasons people come to this global stage.
There are delegations like ours that are justice-centered protesting, advocating, and uninvolved in direct policy negotiations. Some attend to network and shine a good light on their organization, without calling for much change, and then others come to explicitly further the interests of big oil. Corporations and government representatives give out free swag in one part of the conference while negotiating wonky policy in closed-door meetings. You can see these different segments of the conference very clearly, but what you can’t see as clearly is the way power weaves through it all, ever-present and dominating.
I’ve been inspired by my conversations with Indigenous climate leaders speaking truth to power, local educators finding sparks of connection, climate activists disrupting this conference to shed light on the genocide in Gaza, and panels that are challenging attendees to envision a just and adaptive future on a local level, all while national and international leaders refuse to step up and commit to substantive and necessary change.
Today I felt great discomfort and frustration bumping shoulders with greenwashers, oil lobbyists, and government officials from around the world who are spending millions on COP with two goals in mind: to lobby behind closed doors for inaction and inequity, and to craft a positive image of themselves to the climate world while they do it.
COP29 is a test to see if developed countries want a livable world by actually backing climate policies. Without finance, talk about climate action isn’t action. It’s just talk.
In college, I was in the Model United Nations club. I would attend conferences where college students in suits would animatedly debate complex international policies, which often took more than a month to study for. I’ll tell you a secret, though — the people who won the conferences weren’t playing a game that was about how well you understood the subject, but how much power you could build by manipulating the narrative or camouflaging distasteful details. It was never about the truth of the subjects we debated, but the power one could cultivate. Power came to those who knew the right maneuvering tactics, not those who knew the details of policy.
I’ve increasingly learned that Model UN is a scarily accurate microcosm of contemporary international politics. Rich countries are not taking the climate finance issue seriously. Instead of being willing to put forward the trillions of dollars needed in grant-based finance, they refuse to even approach the dollar amount needed, and claim that loans and private finance could fill the gap. Loans worsen the climate crisis, because countries prioritize debt repayment over climate action, and are pushed to pay back their debt by expanding fossil fuel exports. In short, developed nations and the slew of international corporations who attend COP are trying to turn the climate crisis into an investment opportunity for themselves.
Tonight as I walked out of the COP29 conference center, Grace Malie, Rising Nations Youth Delegate from Tuvalu’s words rang in my head:
“How many more COPs will it take to see an actual impact in my community? It’s all talk, and no action.”
Learn more about Grace here.
Zoe 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.
Zoe Redfern-Hall is the Senior Communications and Marketing Manager at Climate Generation and YEA! Alumni. She graduated from Clark University in 2021 with a degree in Political Science. Upon returning home to Minnesota, she became deeply involved with organizing against the Line 3 oil pipeline. Last year, more than 2,000 oil lobbyists were allowed to attend COP, impacting the negotiations, stories, and transparency of the conference. She is excited and honored to join the Climate Generation delegation of climate leaders, educators, and activists calling for real change and ambition for a just cultural, economic, and energy transition away from fossil fuels.
The post How Many More COPs Will It Take? appeared first on Climate Generation.
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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 their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.