Baku, Azerbaijan November 25, 2024: Civil society and developing countries have been left fuming at the outcome of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), calling the decision a betrayal. COP29 closed on a disappointing note in Baku, Azerbaijan this weekend when on Sunday, the COP Presidency forced an outcome at the Plenary after developed countries failed to agree on a climate finance pot big enough to urgently address loss and damage, adaptation and to ensure the planet doesn’t reach catastrophic levels of warming.
The COP29 focus this year was on climate finance, particularly on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Civil society organisations and developing nations called for the “trillions not billions” owed by developed countries because of their historical responsibility for the climate crisis. Without finance for developing nations, the world’s most vulnerable communities are unable to mitigate and transition from fossil fuels, adapt to climate change and rebuild from loss and damage.
African Group Negotiators Chair, Ali Mohamed, from Kenya said: “Africa has been upfront on these figures, $1.3 trillion is the amount that we say needs to be mobilized but we have also given a figure for provisioning, which we said must be at least 600 billion. Africa is already spending 5-9% of GDP responding to challenges that we face on climate change. So, we are asking for additional financing and affordable financing.”
When the NCQG text dropped on Friday, tabling a meagre 250 billion USD by 2035, civil society was enraged, and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Least developed Countries (LDCs) and Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) walked out of the negotiations. The AGN and G77 chairs called it a “joke”, with Mohamed saying, “If it cannot even respond to the $400 billion gap on adaptation – let alone other things – it’s a very big joke indeed!”
Under the title, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, Natural Justice joined hundreds of civil society organisations in petitioning developing nations and the G77 +China to reject the offer. After closed door negotiations resumed, the AGN put out statement warning developed nations they would not be prepared to accept anything that cross their red lines, saying, “The proposed target to mobilise $250 billion per year by 2035 is totally unacceptable and inadequate to delivering the Paris Agreement.”
Natural Justice’s Head of Campaigns, Katherine Robinson, agreed, saying: “COP29 has been a betrayal for civil society, developing nations and those surviving and dying on the front lines of climate crisis- a crisis they did not create. Developed countries, who are responsible for 92% of historical global emissions have betrayed the global south, and once again deployed divide and conquer tactics and used human rights and gender equality as bargaining chips to evade their financial obligations and the climate debt they owe developing countries. The global north has made it crystal clear that they have no respect for International Law, and that the lives of Indigenous Peoples, and people from the global south are collateral damage for their overconsumption, profit and wars.”
Amid silent protests by observers, a new text dropped late on Saturday, with very few substantive changes. The NCQG decision, which was supposed to cover mitigation, adaptation loss and damage, merely kicked the finance can down the road by offering a pittance of 300 billion USD being mobilized by 2035, rather than the 1.3 trillion USD needed every year from 2025 until 2035 to avoid catastrophic climate change. Loss and damage was also removed from the outcome, rendering the Fund Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) a piggy bank for voluntary pledges, leaving disaster struck states helpless in the face of costly climate induced disasters.
The long awaited and much delayed plenary, saw the COP presidency bulldoze through NCQG outcome without due process. India, Boliva and Nigeria lambasted the Presidency for failing to follow UNFCCC process and ultimately rejected the outcome. The LDC group released a statement calling the outcome a travesty, adding: “This is not a failure; it is a betrayal.”
This year Natural Justice advocated for the inclusion of language on equity, a human rights-based approach climate action, a just energy transition and grant-based climate finance, with a specific focus on the urgent need for state parties to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of environmental and land defenders who are increasingly facing reprisals for their important activism in safeguarding the climate and environmental democracy.
Many of the negotiations stalled over the last two weeks, with the NCQG deadlock holding other agenda items hostage. A serious blow was also dealt, with the roll backs of human rights language, specifically on gender, diversity, intersectionality and women environmental defenders in the Lima Work Programme as part of the negotiations on the Gender Action Plan. References to gender and women’s rights have also been deleted across outcomes texts like the Global Goal on Adaptation. The Just Transition Work Programme saw no conclusion and was pushed to the SB62 session in Bonn next year. The draft includes some progressive language on human rights, labour rights, informal workers and the care economy, but there were attempts to remove rights language including the right to health and sustainable environment.
Another disastrous outcome from COP29 is the Article 6 text on market mechanisms and carbon credits. Without human rights and environmental safeguards, and with the problematic inclusion of carbon trading as a source of climate finance without accountability and transparency the outcome has been described as “a gift for polluters and disaster for people and planet”.
At the People’s Plenary on Thursday, convened by observer constituencies, CSOs in song and chants reminded states in songs and chants: “There is no climate justice without human rights and gender justice!” The plenary began with powerful and heartfelt interventions from Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese activists deploring the death, genocide and destruction in their countries.
COP29 is happening against the backdrop of a fossil fuel driven genocides in Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon, with developed countries spending billions of US dollars on military aid, rather than fulfilling their financial obligations under the climate convention and Paris Accords.
With COP30 being held in Belem, Brazil, the fight continues with states and civil society hoping that a more progressive government and a country with more civic space, the negotiations will go further in delivering outcomes urgently needed to fund and protect people surviving on the frontlines of climate emergency.
Quotes from Natural Justice representatives and community members supported by Natural Justice to attend COP29:
Tawonga Chihana, Natural Justice, Coordinator for the African Environmental Defenders Initiative said: “The deletion of women environmental defenders from the gender negotiations text demonstrates the lack of commitment by Parties to recognize environmental defenders as key players in the advancement of climate justice. The new Brazilian president has already shown some form of commitment towards environmental protections and the ratification of the Escazu treaty. As we prepare for COP30, we are hoping to leverage and fortify our advocacy efforts to push for the recognition of environmental human rights defenders under the UNFCCC.”
Natural Justice’s West African Hub Director, Sokhna Die Ka, said: “Africa urgently needs money to finance a transition that centres the rights and justice. We do not need carbon offsets and other false solutions that allow companies and governments to continue business as usual. We were not asking for a donation; we were demanding what is owed to us by developed countries. We got nothing! More than 65% of climate financing consists of debt. We don’t want any more debt!”
Nazeer Sonday, Chair of the PHA Food and Farming Campaign said: “I was alarmed that the global south farmers don’t have a platform in the negotiations. We are suffering from impacts of climate change, but we’re also the most important land stewards – but don’t have a voice here. I’m going to share my COP experience with the farmer networks I’m involved with and encourage young women farmers to attend- it’s important to have their voices here.”
Bob Barigye, Activists for the Climate Justice Initiative in Uganda said: “It’s disappointing to realize the global north is not on our side. I have a different perspective now – the developed countries are focused on profit, not the people.”
