Cop29: five critical issues still left hanging after an underwhelming UN climate summit in Azerbaijan

Billed as the “finance Cop”, the 29th UN climate change summit (otherwise known as Cop29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, was expected to provide the money to enable the transition away from fossil fuels announced at last year’s Cop28.

Negotiations were focused on increasing the US$100 billion (£79.4 billion) promised per year by developed countries to help the least developed countries build up their renewable energy capacity. Many demanded a ten-fold increase, as at least US$1 trillion is needed per year. Discussions also centred on who should finance the loss and damage fund agreed at Cop27, that would compensate developing countries for the impacts of climate change.

The conference was a mixed bag – here are our five takeaways:

1. Where is the money?

We urgently need to invest trillions of dollars in climate mitigation and adaptation – yet even though this was the finance Cop, very little money was put on the table.

Developing countries asked for US$1.3 trillion from developed countries by 2035, with added voluntary contributions from better-off countries still classed as developing, such as China. What they got in the early hours of Sunday, after the summit had overrun by 33 hours, was a much lower pledge of US$300 billion by 2035 from governments and the private sector.

The loss and damage fund is now up and running, and aims to help vulnerable nations pay for climate-related natural disasters. But it remains woefully underfunded, like many of these financial mechanisms, and no agreement was reached on who pays in and who can claim. There were other calls to action at the summit, for instance on zero-emission fuels in shipping and other transport sectors. However these will all require substantial sums of climate finance and little or no progress was made.

2. China steps up, US says goodbye and India stays at home

China means business when it comes to carbon neutrality and investment in green technologies. That much was evident from strong engagement at Cop29 from its ministries, private sector and experts.

However, it wants to stick to definitions of “developing nations” used when the UN’s climate framework was devised back in 1992. Under that definition, China – now the world’s second largest economy – is still developing, and need only make voluntary contributions to climate finance.

India on the other hand dismissed Cop29 as a “technical Cop” with the senior leadership staying at home in part due to elections in the state of Maharashtra. India’s delegation said that the US$1.3 trillion investment should come from developed nations (which does not include India). India did express its disappointment in a strong statement once the Cop agreement was ratified.

The US said goodbye to serious action on climate change the very day Donald Trump got elected as president which led to subdued mood at the country’s pavilion and quite a few hotel room cancellations in Baku. Many have suggested the lack of financial ambition is in part because the US will not be contributing to the funds during a Trump presidency.

3. Saudi Arabia tries to wreck the party

Last year’s climate summit agreed a historic resolution to “transition away from fossil fuels”. Yet from the beginning of Cop29 the Saudis tried to ensure that it was not restated this year, much to the annoyance of the UK, the EU and many other countries – including even fellow petrostate (and Cop28 host) the UAE.

At the final hour the resolution was included in this year’s Cop agreement but only by referring to it by paragraph and document number, so the words “fossil fuels” do not appear in this year’s agreement. However the text does include “transitional fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition”. This is largely a reference to natural gas, which is considered a transitional fuel. So another win for the fossil fuel lobby.

4. Methane commitments

There were some more positive outcomes from the summit, such as a pledge on methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and can be emitted by decomposing food and other organic waste, often in landfills. After agriculture and fossil fuels, this is the third-largest source of methane emissions from human activity.

At Cop29, 30 countries representing nearly 50% of global methane emissions from organic waste signed up to reduce those emissions as part of their future climate action plans. This pledge will pave the way to develop methane capture technologies, especially in landfill sites, and to use some of that methane as bio-gas for heat or electricity.

5. Youth focus

At Cop29 the UN secretary general, António Guterres, addressed youth representatives: “You have every right to be angry. I am angry too.”

The UK was the first out of 196 countries to sign up to the universal youth clause designed to be integrated into the pledges countries make to cut their carbon emissions (known as NDCs). If adopted by other nations, this clause would put children and young people centre stage both as stakeholders affected by climate change, but also as agents of change. Given the political backlash in many countries against climate action this empowerment of the youth is essential, as they will take the reins to secure the future for themselves and generations to come.

Did Cop29 make any groundbreaking decisions? No. But many saw this summit as the stepping stone to Cop30 in Brazil next year – that summit will mark the ten-year anniversary of the Paris agreement, and the next submissions of national emissions reduction plans are due in February 2025.

In fact, even in the final week of this summit, the focus had already shifted to Cop30 which has been billed as the “Youth Cop”. This was evident at Cop29 with strong youth voices and presence campaigning for youth-centric NDCs.

A more realistic interpretation is that Cop29 was a collective failure to provide the investment needed to shift the world away from fossil fuels. This was supposed to be the finance Cop, so where is the money? All this means we are still looking at a future with global warming above 3˚C.

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Mark Maslin is Pro-Vice Provost of the UCL Climate Crisis Grand Challenge. He is co-director of the London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is an advisor to Sheep Included Ltd, Lansons, NetZeroNow and has advised the UK Parliament. He has received grant funding from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, DFG, Royal Society, DIFD, BEIS, DECC, FCO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Research England, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, CIFF, Sprint2020, and British Council. He has received funding from the BBC, Lancet, Laithwaites, Seventh Generation, Channel 4, JLT Re, WWF, Hermes, CAFOD, HP and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

Professor Priti Parikh is the Director of UCL's Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction. She is a Fellow and Trustee for Institution of Civil Engineers. She is a board member for Happold Foundation and Engineers Against Poverty. Research funding sources include UKRI, Royal Academy of Engineering, Water Aid, British Academy, Bboxx Ltd, UCL, Royal Society and British Council. Her consultancy has received funding from AECOM, Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor, UNHABITAT, Arup, ITAD and GTZ.

Simon Chin-Yee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.