Muhammad Urs’ Post

As COP29 comes towards it end in Baku, increasing concerns about its effectiveness have surfaced. Despite some progress, notably in climate finance mechanisms and global solidarity levies aimed at supporting developing countries, leading climate policy experts argue that the process is becoming unfit for purpose. Influential figures, including Ban Ki-moon and Christiana Figueres, emphasize the need for reforms, such as hosting future COPs only in countries that demonstrate genuine support for climate action. The overwhelming presence of fossil fuel lobbyists further diminishes the conference's focus on the just transition needed to address the climate crisis. While proposals like the introduction of new levies and a push for fiscal justice show promise, the slow movement on key financial agreements indicates that significant changes are needed to ensure COP truly advances from negotiation to implementation. #ClimateAction #COP29 #SustainableFuture #ClimateJustice https://lnkd.in/e6mBvCvJ

COPs has historically been a disappointment for many Pacific Islanders who have sacrificed their time, resource and energy. But they continue to power on each year because if they don’t than who will, if the Pacific is not represented than how will big emitters know the devastating impact that the climate crisis has on our people. I’m blessed to be here reporting at COP29 once again, and before the opening much more is happening on the background. #COP29 #Pacific #ClimateJustice #FinanceCOP Please find below my pre-COP story.

Cop summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, say leading climate policy experts https://lnkd.in/d7tnbNxP A group of influential climate policy experts has called for future UN climate summits to be held in countries that support climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying. The group has written to the UN demanding a streamlined process of annual "conferences of the parties" under the UN framework convention on climate change, the parent treaty of the Paris agreement. The focus of Cop29 is to supply enough cash to poor countries to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate-driven extreme weather. The group believes that developed countries should provide a third of the funding by 2030, while most of the rest should come from the private sector. Some countries are also looking for new sources of finance to plug the gaps, such as charging cryptocurrencies, charging plastics production levies, a 2% wealth tax, or taxing frequent flyers and business class airline tickets.

There are multiple reasons to be disappointed with the COP mechanism, especially its helplessness in combating the adverse effects of climate change. But a sliver of hope seems to be emerging from the haze that envelopes Baku, capital of Azerbaijan and COP29 host. Surprisingly, and counter-intuitively, this ray of optimism is radiating from the private sector. It's certainly early days yet, but this space needs to be watched carefully. My column in Mint. #climatechange #COP29 #BakuCOP29 #carboncredits #carbonmarket #environment https://lnkd.in/drpNhaSd

C2ES statement on the conclusion of #COP29: "Throughout the two weeks of the COP, one thing was unmistakable: Presidential election or no, the rest of the world is racing ahead in the low carbon economy," says C2ES President Nathaniel Keohane. "With the new climate finance goal agreed at COP29, all eyes will now turn to the climate targets that countries are required to come forward with early next year," says VP for International Strategies Kaveh Guilanpour. 🗞️ https://lnkd.in/edUTx2iX #climatefinance #climatepolicy #climate #climateaction

🔎 Financing, attendance, lobbyists... Catch up with what happened at COP29 this week. 1️⃣ COP29 kicks off: The United Nations' annual climate conference began on 11 November in Baku, Azerbaijan with a focus on funding for developing nations. "The actual negotiations in Baku will make this one of the most important, and fiercely contested, UN summits to date," writes Simon Mundy, moral money editor with the Financial Times. https://lnkd.in/eErfGb3U 2️⃣ Poor attendance: COP29 has been marred by a string of high-profile no-shows, including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and outgoing US president Joe Biden. "Their absence will surely shift the dynamics of COP29, potentially altering discussions on essential issues like climate finance, emission reduction commitments and global climate resilience initiatives," says energy expert Dante Powell. https://lnkd.in/e4ShVgYM 3️⃣ Fossil fuel transition: This year is on track to set the record for global carbon emissions, with a rise of 0.8% expected. "It is really high time to focus on phasing out fossil fuels instead of struggling with pointless bureaucratic monsters for forest and land management," writes Kasimir P. Nemestothy, the head of energy economics and energy policy at the Austrian Chamber of Agriculture. https://lnkd.in/ek6dFidq 4️⃣ Global heating to increase: The planet is on course for a temperature rise of 2.7C above the pre-industrial average by the end of the century if current policies remain. "Key challenges remain: Fossil fuel subsidies are at an all-time high, and funding for fossil fuel-prolonging projects quadrupled between 2021 and 2022," says Frederic Hans, senior climate policy advisor at Climate Action Tracker, which carried out the analysis.  https://lnkd.in/ev4YRPFY 5️⃣ COP is 'not fit for purpose': A group of high-profile climate voices has said the conference should only be hosted by countries which have shown support for climate action and have restricted fossil fuel lobbying. "During COP1, global temperatures were only 0.4°C above pre-industrial levels," writes Muhammad Urs, founder of a climate action group. "Today, they’ve soared, underscoring the urgent need for real action over prolonged negotiations". https://lnkd.in/e6Mb9iEe Follow COP29 news on LinkedIn ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e2j9eupJ 🎙️ What do you think leaders should focus on at COP? Share your thoughts in the comments or a post using the following hashtags: #LinkedInNewsEurope #COP29 #GreenerTogether

Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency claimed an early win at the start of the climate summit when countries waved through long-awaited – and controversial – rules laying the foundations for a new UN carbon market, without any debate. But the approval of the documents setting out key guidelines – or “standards” – for the development of carbon credit projects and carbon removal activities provoked strong opposing reactions. The Azerbaijan COP presidency put a number to the potential market, claiming that “co-operation across borders” under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement using carbon credits could reduce the cost of carrying out national climate plans by $250 billion every year. 

I was so pleased to read this article and see these important links being made. As Churchill said, "The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see”. All too often MSM articles are written for people who want to want to believe they live in a time that is special, so by default they are special. This means that they don't consider a history of more than a few years or sometime only a few months old. But we can't fix the state we are in unless we are willing to investigate and be honest about how we got here. ___ From the article: Far from seeing the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, as an obstacle to business as usual, polluters used it to coordinate the industry-preferred response to climate change and to embed that response amongst various heads of state and negotiators, influencing not just the eventual drafting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, but also every Conference of the Parties (COP) to that convention since. Documents show that one of the early agenda items for UNEP was the creation of an Industry Program that could enable UNEP to work directly with various polluting industries. It helped that the global oil industry had a friend in the founding director of UNEP, a Canadian oil man named Maurice Strong. ____ In parallel to this, all the same things happened to ensure that global business could keep making huge profits from the exploitation of endangered and exotic species. CITES came into force in 1975 to address depletion resulting from demand for luxury goods such as furs in Western countries. In the same way that the demands of the fossil fuel industries were embedded into the UNFCCC, the demands of luxury companies were embedded into CITES; global brands and luxury associations have been part of CITES, and CITES CoPs, since the beginning. By 1981 and CITES CoP3, signatories had recognised that the CITES model, where the default is to trade until it can be proven that trade is a problem, was flawed and would cause biodiversity loss. A solution was proposed in 1981, moving to a reverse listing model, https://lnkd.in/ghH-da3W but this needed change was ignored. If this had been put in place in 1981, we may not have triggered biodiversity loss on the scale we are seeing today. https://lnkd.in/gSdJY6y Instead, CITES became a UNEP-administered multilateral environmental agreement in 1984. What has happened has been by design not accident: https://lnkd.in/gEy3q8_R It is only with articles like this one in Drilled Media and investigations done by the likes of Amy Westervelt we look far enough back to know the real, not phantom, solutions needed to move forward: https://lnkd.in/gcdfH3QP

COP29 wrapped up last weekend after a week of intense discussions. One of the main issues was how developed nations will finance developing nations in their climate change efforts. And another contentious point that cannot be ignored was the pressing issue of transitioning away from fossil fuels. For a more in depth overview, we found this article by Carbon Brief helpful in summing-up what transpired at COP29 in Baku. https://lnkd.in/ehwcBMXq #climatechange #fossilfuels #climateaction

The historic climate financing deal at the end of COP29 is still only the needed start to press forward. Poor and the most vulnerable nations stressed the need for more. Mary Robinson, former Irish President and the chair of a group of foreign leaders known as The Elders, noted that the $300 billion per year figure is $90 billion less than the amount to meet the Paris Agreement. What actions will take place in the coming year leading up to COP30, including those relating to the incoming Trump Administration bent on pushing for less global interaction and more fossil fuel production? #climatefinancing #cop29 #cop30 #parisaccord #foreignaffairs #climatechange #environment https://lnkd.in/e9gMX4_M