4 November 2024 – The United Nations’ COP29 conference in Azerbaijan is taking place against a backdrop of geopolitical turbulence and growing urgency. Our four policy ‘asks’ set out what the globe needs in order to secure a safe and stable future for all.
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About
While globally the rollout of solutions continues to grow, we are failing to keep pace with the climate and nature crises, and trends continue to head in the wrong direction. This year, the climate COP falls just a week after the biodiversity COP has concluded in Colombia, and it is now more important than ever that world leaders take an integrated approach to nature and climate to accelerate action for a sustainable future.
Finding common ground at COP29 will be more challenging than ever given the continued growth in populist and nationalist politics, political instability, with key election outcomes yet to be announced, and significant intergovernmental tensions. Discussions around climate have suffered from polarisation, misrepresentation and conspiracy thinking, meaning achieving effective climate action is increasingly challenging.
In light of this, COP29 presents an important opportunity for the international community to demonstrate strong climate leadership. The United Nations (UN) climate change negotiations have the legitimacy and participation to bring together global efforts on climate change and to send a clear signal about the scale and speed of action required. Globally, deep structural changes are needed to create thriving markets for net zero, nature-positive, circular products and to drive down damaging economic activity.
Last year, at COP28, countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time, and committed to key goals such as tripling renewables and operationalising a new funding mechanism for loss and damage. Now government leaders at COP29 must provide clarity; setting out a vision for a 1.5°C future, backed by the domestic policies required to achieve it.
Our ‘asks’
The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) is attending with four key policy ‘asks’ of the Parties, designed to unlock private sector ambition and galvanise the private sector’s participation in delivering a net zero and nature-positive economy:
- A robust and inclusive New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG)
- Ambitious and investable Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
- A high-integrity carbon market infrastructure
- A working Loss and Damage Fund that leverages private risk markets.
