Building up to COP29 – here’s what to expect from this year’s conference
Posted on: 9 October, 2024
This November sees the return of one of the most controversial yet significant events in the sustainability calendar.
On 11 November, United Nation’s latest Conference of the Parties (COP) event launches, with this year’s host being the city of Baku in Azerbaijan.
After significant criticism threatened to overshadow last year’s COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Nations will be hoping for a quieter event this time round. However, this year’s event has still managed to attract controversy, and significant political developments around the world in the last year mean the success of the conference is once again far from guaranteed.
Learn more: COP28: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Here’s what to expect and some key things to look out for in this year’s proceedings:
1. Azerbaijan is yet another controversial choice of host
It was already announced even before COP28 that the following year’s host would be Azerbaijan, and this choice has once again managed to draw criticism from governments and environmental campaigners alike.
Like the UAE before them, Azerbaijan has a poor track record when it comes to emissions and the use of fossil fuels. Baku itself, often referred to as ‘the world’s first oil town’, was once known as the Black City due to the amount of soot and oil produced from its factories in the early 20th century. Today the country retains a poor reputation in terms of emissions – oil and gas accounted for more than 92.5% of its export revenue in 2023. It also plans to increase gas production threefold over the next decade.
Learn more: What is greenwashing (and how can you spot it)?
However, it’s not just emissions that have made Azerbaijan the target of criticism. Just like UAE, the country has a poor human rights record – Freedom House, a non-profit organisation that focuses on issues with democracy, rank Azerbaijan one of the least free countries in the world. Corruption is reportedly rampant in its political establishment, and critics of the regime, activists and human rights campaigners in the country are being openly detained and arrested ahead of the conference.
2. Representation is still an issue
The choice of Azerbaijan as host once again drew controversy earlier this year, but this time it was for the makeup of its climate committee. The initial 28-person group for this year’s event was composed entirely of men, which prompted strong backlash from campaigners and the international community. She Changes Climate group branded the initial composition as ‘regressive’, particularly as COP28’s committee was made up of 63% women. Christiana Figueres, the UN’s Climate Chief back when the Paris Agreement was delivered in 2015, commented that the 28-man panel was ‘shocking and unacceptable’.
However, while 12 women were soon added to the committee, campaigners still want to see a 50:50 split in representation, with Anicka Heckwolf and Eleonore Soubeyran, Policy Fellows of the London School of Economics and Political Science, identifying a wider issue: the ‘persistent underrepresentation of gender and broader inclusion considerations in climate action’.
3. Expect the UK Prime Minister to spend longer at the conference this year
This year, a new British government will be representing the country at COP. Fronted by Ed Miliband, Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, early reports indicate that the Labour government is considering making further commitments to sustainability and ramping up its emission reduction targets, with the goal of propelling the UK into a leadership position on the international stage.
This comes as welcome news to environmental campaigners, after the previous establishment backtracked on several previous commitments around sustainability and the reduction of emissions. This year, expect PM Keir Starmer to be in attendance longer than his predecessor Rish Sunak, who came under fire for spending more time travelling to COP28 than he did attending the actual conference.
4. The political climate will create uncertainty
The timing of this year’s COP comes less than a week after the 2024 US elections, which take place on November 5, and the outcome of the election is likely to have a significant impact on how involved the USA will be in the conference.
Similarly, France’s position is unclear as it attempts to break a political deadlock between the country’s election-winning coalition, as is Germany, who also find themselves in the middle of a tumultuous period of political uncertainty. Unfortunately, this backdrop of political upheaval and change threatens to draw attention away from the crucial issues at the heart of the conference.
5. Fossil fuels probably aren’t going anywhere just yet
Azerbaijan has been open about its plans to use the conference as an opportunity to promote its own economics interests – even if these directly clash with the goals of COP.
Referring to Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel reserves as ‘a gift of the gods,’ the country’s President, Ilham Aliyev, stated that they will ‘of course defend the right of these countries to continue investments and to continue production.’ What’s more, the president of the ceremony, Mukhtar Babayev, is the former Vice President for Ecology for the country’s national oil company, where he worked for two decades, meaning it’s the second time in a row that the president of the conference is linked to the oil industry.
After last year saw a record number of fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, the selection of Azerbaijan as host means that oil and gas probably aren’t going anywhere in the immediate future, despite some of the progress that was made in last year’s event.
COP28 ended on a high – could this year’s conference follow?
For all of the doom and gloom ahead of COP29, it’s important to note that there are positives that should be kept in mind. While last year’s event was equally controversial, a historic stride was made when almost every country in the world agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. The loss and damage fund was also finally put into action.
The choice of host and the state of the political climate may once again threaten to take the wheels off the conference before it has even begun, but hope remains that we can make further progress towards a sustainable future.
