Azerbaijan calls on all parties to sign a final climate transparency agreement at COP29, COP29 lead negotiator, Yalchin Rafiyev, said at a side event during the UN Pre-Conference of the Parties on Climate Change 2024 (Pre-COP29) on Thursday, October 10, 2024, in Baku.
COP29 will be held in Baku from November 11 to 22, 2024
Rafiyev noted that, as part of the preparation for COP29, the Azerbaijani presidency will hold a ministerial-level meeting on global transparency of climate actions in the coming weeks.
The lead negotiator also emphasised the importance of joint efforts with global partners.
“This is an extremely important period for all of us in terms of ensuring transparency in the climate sphere. We call on all parties to cooperate in order to achieve more significant results in this direction. In this regard, I am convinced that all stakeholders should effectively use their resources to achieve concrete results,” he said.
The outcomes of COP29 on collective quantitative accounting and climate financing will be an important test of the international community’s commitment to ensuring the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, said during a panel session at the Pre-COP29 in Baku.
She called on the global community to work together to achieve a lasting agreement, as “the world desperately needs it.”
“We need something that will give people hope again, and that could be better than solving the climate change problem that the global community is facing. The actions we take in the next 13 months will be crucial. And it’s important for us to be bold in our aspirations while acting urgently,” she said.
The global community must fight climate change and cope with its consequences, Festus Ngeno, secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Kenya, said at a panel session during the Pre-COP29 in Baku.
He said that although climate adaptation was previously considered a local problem of individual countries, now the world community has agreed that the problem has taken on a global character and requires cooperation from the global community.
“The African Union and its regional economic communities have institutional mechanisms to accelerate coordination and cooperation in overcoming climate risks,” he said.
The global community needs to develop a model for unified management of climate actions, Firdaous Oussidhoum, the special advisor to the Secretary General of the World Organisation “United Cities and Local Governments,” said during a panel session at Pre-COP29).
According to her, in addition to working within international organizations, it is necessary to intensify actions at the regional level.
The balance between the global community and regional governance in climate action issues is very important and is a key to success, she said. Oussidhoum called on parties for immediate action in the fight against climate change.
“The price of inaction is becoming too high. Too high in terms of human casualties and too high in terms of cost,” she noted.
She also emphasised that the Loss and Damage Fund should become the main pillar in helping to adapt and implement climate actions.
Ensuring transparency of climate actions can help understand climate change, and the main goal is to involve youth and children in this process, Leyla Hasanova, the youth climate champion for COP29 in Azerbaijan, said at a side event within the framework of the Pre-COP29 conference.
She said transparency is key to assessing the effectiveness of climate plans for children and youth around the world: “And it can really provide young people with an opportunity to participate in climate processes.”
Hasanova recalled that, as part of an initiative implemented this year as the chair of COP29, a summer camp for young educators on combating climate change was organized jointly with UNDP in Azerbaijan.
“We successfully held a camp for 75 young educators from 35 countries around the world. We brought them together, and we had amazing three-day trainings where they received detailed information about climate change, why it’s happening, and how young educators can cope with it, return to their countries, and educate their children, youth, and students,” she noted.
The youth climate advocate also emphasised that transparency would become the cornerstone of mutual trust and accountability as parties strive for more ambitious national climate plans in the run-up to COP29 and beyond.
Azerbaijan, as part of its chairmanship of COP29, has raised the discussion of climate action transparency to a high level, Presidential Advisor – Special Representative of the President of Kazakhstan for International Environmental Cooperation, Zulfiya Suleymanova, said at a side event during the Pre-COP29 on Thursday, October 10, 2024, in Baku.
According to her, “Azerbaijan has taken the bold step of truly trying to create a unified platform” that helps better coordinate its actions with existing platforms in the field of climate transparency.
“I hope that this transparency process will really help to intensify actions [in the field of climate change] and continue to build confidence in the process and, of course, trust between all stakeholders,” she said.
She also expressed hope that many will submit their biennial transparency report before the COP29 climate conference, which will be held in November in Baku.
The global community must intensify efforts in combating climate change and provide their national reports while continuing to develop, Francesco Corvaro, Italy’s special envoy for climate change, said at a round table within the Pre-COP29 in Baku.
He noted that it is difficult to maintain the dynamics of development and transparency in addressing climate issues at the same level.
“COP29 is trying to create synergy between all initiatives. We must help all parties in need. Italy is ready to support countries both in climate reporting and capacity building,” he added.
Each COP session is based on previously reached agreements. COP30, which will be held in Brazil, will also use the agreements reached at COP29, Andre Correa do Lago, Secretary for Climate, Energy and Environment at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has said.
“Brazil, as one of the parties of the Troika, plays a special role in the Pre-COP29 event. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Azerbaijan, and Brazil are now working together. Because at the last COP, we came to the conclusion that we cannot start each conference from scratch. Now we are closely coordinating activities with the presidencies of Azerbaijan and the UAE. Brazil is here as a partner who wants to help prepare the work that will be completed in Belem,” he noted.
The Brazilian official also emphasised that if real climate measures are taken, the 1.5°C target can be achieved:
“We need to convince the world of the necessity of reaching this target. It’s very difficult to convince people without scaring them. However, even fear doesn’t work. We didn’t achieve results by repeatedly saying that we would be in a bad situation. Therefore, it’s necessary to combine scientific reality with optimism, based on the fact that people can make many mistakes but can also find solutions. I hope that we can achieve this balance in Baku and Belem.”
Correa do Lago stated that the world expects good results from the COP29 climate conference in Baku.
“Unfortunately, today most people are focused on what multilateralism is unable to achieve. We must ensure the strengthening of multilateralism within the framework of the event we are holding. I think we will always emphasize the importance of the consensus reached in the UAE last year (within the framework of COP28), and we expect a similar result here in Baku,” he said.
He noted that it is necessary to do everything to strengthen multilateralism and Brazil can be relied on in this matter.
Climate change goals can only be achieved through international cooperation, Grace Fu Hai Yen, the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment of Singapore, said at the Pre-COP29 event, themed “Enhance Ambition and Enable Action” held in Baku on Thursday, October 10, 2024.
According to the minister, international cooperation is very important for her country: “Singapore has signed agreements with a number of countries in the field of carbon technology. Of course, there are risks in the implementation of these projects. But we also highly value the advantages of these projects.”
The minister stated that there is a need to attract innovative financing: “We are insistent on this issue. At the same time, we should also involve private companies in decarbonisation projects.”
Any climate action begins with science, and based on this, the European Union subsidises science, European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, said at a panel session during the UN Preliminary Conference of the Parties on Climate Change 2024 (Pre-COP29).
“We have also provided extensive funding for climate science, working together with many parties, primarily with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By doing so, we want to emphasise that this should be the concern of the entire international community,” he said.
Hoekstra emphasised that the European Union aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, while relying on the resilience of the population and the competitiveness of businesses.
“We are very eager not only to continue moving along this ambitious path but also to cooperate closely with the entire global community to ensure that we are moving in the right direction,” he concluded.
At a panel session during the 2024 Pre-COP29, Nigar Arpadarai, the UN High-Level Climate Champion for COP29, emphasised the crucial role of the private sector in achieving the set climate goals.
She said climate finance would be insufficient without the active participation of the private capital.
“We need the private sector,” Arpadarai stressed.
However, she pointed out that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often lagging behind in this regard.
“This is another goal we want to achieve. Because small and medium-sized enterprises are the real economy, they provide 90% of economic growth,” she added.
By Mercy Abutsa
