COP29 Organizing Committee member notes need to set new amount for climate action at $1 trillion

The main goal for countries at the Baku COP will be to determine a new financial amount for climate action. The current target of 100 billion in funding is not sufficient to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and to address the problems of countries most affected by climate change. There is a need to significantly increase this target, to at least 500 billion or even 1 trillion dollars. The global community expects this from developed countries.

Report informs that a member of the COP29 Organizing Committee, MP Parvana Valiyeva, has answered AZERTAC's questions about expectations for COP29, Azerbaijan's leadership in preventing climate change and other issues.

She said the main expectation from COP29 is to determine the new amount of climate action finance to be paid by developed countries to developing countries. Although the previous climate finance amount was set at 100 billion US dollars by 2020, reports indicate that this was only achieved in 2022.

The MP emphasized that serious work needs to be done in this area. First and foremost, G7 countries, and to some extent G20 countries, need to recognize their responsibility, make appropriate decisions, and reach a consensus.

"Azerbaijan's COP29 Presidency is making every effort to reach agreement on a new climate finance goal between developed and developing countries and achieve a result based on consensus. The COP29 Presidency calls on developed countries and international financial institutions to take action and it is carrying out continuous engagement to support this objective. In addition, meetings are held on a regular basis and in a constructive manner with Parties, international organisations and other stakeholders. As an example, we hosted informal consultations with Heads of Delegations in Azerbaijan from July 25-28, 2024 to discuss the key issues on the COP29 agenda.

The COP29 Presidency attaches special importance to the problems of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), countries that suffer the most from the negative effects of climate change, and the support Azerbaijan has provided to them is appreciated by the international community.

Recently, the Pact for the Future was adopted as the key result of the Summit of the Future held in New York on September 22-23. This document outlines the primary areas of countries’ actions in the coming years and contains a separate paragraph on COP29.

Also, a number of heads of state and government ministers referred to COP29 in their speeches both in the Summit of the Future and the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted that COP29 is approaching and said that the outcome of the event should be a new climate finance target.

Parvana Valiyeva noted that the President of the Republic of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that the most important factors in providing support for developing countries in the context of climate change are finance, technology sharing and capacity building.

"He believes that COP29 Azerbaijan will contribute to the solution of these issues. During the session, developing countries called for the amount of climate finance to increase from $100 billion during COP29 Azerbaijan. In addition, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Monaco, Kenya, Fiji and other states referred to COP29 in their speeches in New York. This demonstrates the importance of COP29 as a historic event and highlights Azerbaijan's leading role in combatting climate change, which is one of the biggest problems currently affecting the world," Valiyeva said.

She noted that President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stressed that developed and developing countries should contribute to the solution of climate problems within their capabilities instead of accusing and blaming each other for climate change.

"Although our country is working towards achieving the historic agreement in Baku, the Baku Agreement, joint efforts and the constructive participation of all Parties is needed to achieve tangible progress. All parties have a collective responsibility in this matter," Valiyeva noted.

She added that COP29 has called on the international community to reach consensus on an ambitious new climate finance goal.

"If no consensus is reached in Baku, then it will have a negative impact on the future of climate negotiations. As President Ilham Aliyev emphasized, our country will spare no effort during COP29 to create a bridge between developed and developing countries, achieve consensus and ensure COP29 is a success," Valiyeva noted.