Reflecting on COP29
Believe it or not, there’s been a full turn of the merry go round since the promises of a larger Loss and Damage fund and the phasing out of fossil fuels were made in UAE, at COP28.
During the last year we’ve continued to see catastrophic climate crises, across the globe, that the World Weather Attribution (WWA) has proven to have a relationship with global warming.
Climate Scientist, Daniel Swain, writes “one of the clearest near-term consequences of global warming, aside from rising temperatures themselves, is an increase in extreme rain events”. Something made most apparent, only a few weeks ago, where 227 people died during flash flooding in Valencia.
This shows the real, devastating impact on our society as we alarmingly edge beyond the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C pathway.
We saw Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, open proceedings in Baku, Azerbaijan, with a stern message for the summit’s attendees; “We mustn’t let 1.5 slip out of reach. Even as temperatures rise, the implementation of our agreements must claw them back”.
The Agreement of the final hour: Carbon Markets
Carbon Markets are no new notion to geopolitical or corporate sustainability. However, they have sat in somewhat a grey area of legibility between supply chains, sectors and states for over a decade. To help understand the key components of these mechanisms, let’s start with some definitions:
- Compliance Carbon Markets are imposed by governments on specific high carbon sectors using a Cap and Trade principle, which states that liable sectors cannot exceed a certain carbon spend, without buying permits for every excess carbon ton they emit.
- Voluntary Carbon Markets offer a private sector means of neutralising residual carbon footprints with the purchase of carbon credits, one credit being one carbon tonne. Third party providers generate carbon credits via an arranged ecosystem of carbon avoidance or removal. These ecosystems can vary from the adoption of low carbon fuels in transport to the sequestering of carbon in long term forestry projects.
The EU and UK have developed an Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) as their compliance carbon markets.
Underwhelmingly, only 40% and 30% of the respective states’ carbon footprints are captured by ETS, leaving much of their markets ungoverned. Within this ungoverned space, it is up to the private sector to innovate carbon reduction in voluntary markets.
A primary objective for policy makers of COP29 is to create legislation to promote the use of carbon markets, credibly and productively. For this to happen, more sectors need to be introduced to compliance markets and more confidence needs to be given to corporations to engage in voluntary markets.
Knowing whether to engage with carbon credits can be confusing for a business for multiple reasons. Legislation is lacking in regard to both when is appropriate to engage in carbon credits, and ensuring the credits are of good provenance.
The outcomes of COP29 are set to provide clarity to this opaque area, encouraging corporations to increase spend in voluntary markets, without inherent fears of greenwashing.
Tensions from Intentions: Political Complications at COP29
The double edge sword of all COP summits is the grand total of 198 countries that attend.
Whilst brilliant from the perspective of a combined global effort, it can be challenging as there are many different priorities between party members, which muddy the development of significant climate legislation.
Simon Stiell highlighted this frustration at the summit’s midpoint; “We can’t lose sight of the forest because we’re tussling over individual trees. We will only get the job done if Parties are prepared to step forward in parallel, bringing us closer to common ground.”
The Loss and Damage fund is a dominating point of differing opinions, caused by the large range of economic development between the attending nations. For instance, what right does the EU have in funding zero emission nuclear power when the indigenous people of Ecuador are having their lives ruined by the mining of uranium?
Constructing an agreeable exchange of funds between developed and developing countries, in the pursuit of a wholly greener world, has arguably suffocated any real progress at COP29.
Tina Stege, the COP representative for the Marshall Islands, echoes the sentiment of all the 3 billion people in climate threatened developing nations; “Every year we make the long journey to COP because it is where we are able to advocate for the 1.5°C world that keeps my people above water. That world is hanging by a thread, and what I’m confronted with here is a text that neither secures 1.5 nor gives me the finance I need to live in the 2.7°C world we are all hurtling toward.”
Another, troubling, intention surrounding COP29 is one that trumps them all.
In light of their recent election, the US have resurfaced their desire to pull out of the 1.5°C Paris Agreement. Since his landslide victory, President-elect, Donald Trump announced “We don’t have a global warming problem, it is all a big hoax”.
The Paris Agreement aligns 198 countries in a commitment to keep the planet below 1.5°C of warming and to fairly distribute finance, between countries, such that the entire planet can afford to reduce GHG emissions.
Mr Trump’s stance is that he serves the people “of Pittsburgh, not Paris”. This nationalistic approach has already had a domino effect in Azerbaijan. The Argentinian President, Javier Milei, ordered his COP29 representatives to withdraw from the conference, having previously labelled global warming as a “socialist lie”.
It is critical to eradicate the spread of this narrative if COP29 is to reach a united stance on significant legislation.
Looking to the future
So what does this all mean? Should you keep rinsing peanut butter jars, or just give up?
However turbulent COP29 has been, there are agreements being made that will keep our global sustainability strategy in line with the 1.5°C flight path.
Facilitating credible and accessible financing of carbon credits will create a whole new way for both the public and private sector to achieve lower emissions, whilst providing aid to those who are most affected by climate change.
Simon Steill provides hope in his statement: “We now need stronger and clear policy statements from governments to further drive green demand at scale and unlock capital flow to technologies that can accelerate decarbonisation”.
In Baku we’ve seen nations which climate change means a direct risk to human life carry out peaceful protests in front of other nations which claim global warming is merely left-wing lore.
Unity and progress can still be found; however, action must be taken now – a sentiment shared in the closing statements of UN Secretary-General António Guterres; “I urge every party to step-up, pick-up the pace, and deliver”.
A net zero planet is not myth or fable. It is not only in the hands of COP summit leaders, but in yours.
Climate change is a problem shared by all people of the world, and it is important to remember, its resolve lies on the shoulders of each person within it.
Understanding all the latest changes to sustainability within logistics can be complex, that’s why we’re always simplifying these tricky topics in our articles. From CBAM to alternative fuels, click here to read our latest posts.
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