The COP29 Indigenous Peoples Platform: Calling for Action to end the colonial nature of the COVID-19 Convention (An Indigenous Perspective)
“To actually unchain ourselves from the colonial nature of the COP itself,” he said. The COP is about the end of Indigenous nationhood. The nationhood of Indigenous peoples is not acknowledged and incorporated because of the uphold of state nationhood.
A representative for the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform atCOP29 says he wants to ensure there is no additional harm to the Indigenous peoples.
Eriel Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and an Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation member, says Indigenous peoples are still largely relegated to the sidelines.
The people from the indigenous group hold a part in these meetings. They can provide advice to states that want to listen to the desires and needs of Indigenous people.
The Problem of Climate Change in the 21st Century: A Report from IRENA and the COP28 Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan
Those gains allow solar to meet the goal of tripling capacity by the year 2030. There isn’t enough wind power or batteries to store renewable energy when the sun doesn’t shine. A separate analysis by the International Energy Agency earlier this year said that power grids around the world will need a nearly 15-fold increase in energy storage by 2030, mostly in the form of batteries.
At the COP28 meeting in Dubai last year, countries pledged to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 and double annual energy efficiency improvements. The goal has been identified by the International Renewable Energy Agency as needed to avoid the worst consequences of burning fossil fuels.
“It is still possible to achieve this goal, but each year the target falls further out of reach,” Francesco La Camera, IRENA’s director-general says. “We made a shared commitment at COP28. It is time for us to deliver.
But this year the world is investing even more money in exploring for and producing fossil fuels, according to a report from S&P Global Commodity Insights. President-elect Trump has promised to champion fossil fuels and cut investments for solutions that reduce climate pollution, like solar and wind energy, and large batteries. Trump said that he would kill Biden’s climate legislation.
Delegates from close to 200 countries are convening at the UN summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month to try to set new targets to combat climate change. This year is about getting more funding from wealthy countries to help less well off countries transition to cleaner energy and adapt to climate disasters.
At COP29, countries will attempt to agree on what the new, higher annual climate finance target of the NCQG should be, with some arguing that the figure should run into the trillions. What kind of finance is included, as well as the amount of funds that should go toward loss and damage, is part of the decision made by countries. There are other considerations: will the private sector contribute? And when should the target be reached? There are many different options for the years 2015 and 2020. The weight of inflation is something to keep an eye on.
“I think for me, success is when the money is actually delivered,” says Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at The Breakthrough Institute. The increase in resources to poor countries that will help them tackle climate change is what we want to see. We are seeing these statements.
Donald Trump winning the election is a big deal. He has said climate change is a hoax. During his first term, the U.S. pulled out of the Paris agreement.
The challenge of climate finance: How President-elect Trump will pull out of the Copenhagen climate agreement and the North Central Bank Climate Action Plan (NCQG)
“I remain very optimistic on the technology side,” says Rich Lesser, global chair of Boston Consulting Group. The challenge is that we do not have to set a timetable.
In Copenhagen in 2009, industrialized countries agreed to provide $100 billion of climate finance each year to developing countries, to help them with their climate actions (though this target was achieved for the first time only in 2022). Then, in Paris in 2015, countries agreed that a new, larger target should be set for helping developing countries from 2025 onward. And so the NCQG was born.
It requires every country to make a pledge on how much pollution they will cut and update it every few years. The objective is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to temperatures in the late 1800s, and ideally, no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to reduce the risks of escalating extreme weather disasters.
The senior associate at the climate change think tank E3G says that President-elect Trump will pull out of the Paris accord on his first day in office.
The process can take a year if the U.S. withdraws. The threat is already changing the diplomatic landscape. If Vice President Harris had won the election, countries wouldn’t depend on U.S. leadership at the summit.
“With Trump’s victory, I think people will be looking to see other countries, other leaders pick up the slack,” Meyer says. Particularly the European Union and China.
What We Don’t Know about Climate Change: Key Issues for Developing and Emerging Markets, and Implications for Solar and Wind
Industrialized countries like the United States built their wealth producing and using fossil fuels — and that’s driven most of the planetary warming so far. Developing nations have contributed to less pollution. But they’re suffering disproportionate harm because of their smaller economies and geographic locations.
That leaves developing nations in a bind. Whatever money is pledged, it will probably be a small portion of what is needed. And they’ll be relying on wealthy neighbors that have been unreliable.
The climate change conferences held every 12 months have a microphone that can be heard from small islands as they attempt to make decisions on how to curb climate change.
The meeting will start today with a speech from the heads of state and their environment ministers. They will then make way for the negotiators and so-called sherpas: the people who prepare the text of the conference’s decisions.
To avoid stalemate, these final decisions are approved by consensus rather than voted on; approval is obtained in the absence of overt objections, though the decisions’ text may be repeatedly amended in order to reach an agreement. Here is what to look out for.
The new report claims that renewable markets have moved but governments’ ambitions have not.
The good news is that industry forecasts look brighter than what’s reflected in national policies, and renewables can grow, even with lawmakers dragging their feet on climate action. Solar and wind are already more affordable power sources than fossil fuels in most of the world, with solar deployment on track to see a 29 percent increase in installations this year compared to last, according to Ember’s estimates. That follows a whopping 87 percent surge in solar installations in 2023.
The impact of a Trump-inspired “retreat” on clean energy and renewable energy in the US is going to be disastrous for manufacturing and trade
Trump has also said he would rescind unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion in federal funding on climate and clean energy and has triggered more than $200 billion in clean energy investment in the US.
A Trump-inspired “retreat” on renewable energy could be a boon to competitors including China that already dominate clean energy markets. Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act would deal a blow to US manufacturing and trade, likely ceding $80 billion in investment opportunities to other countries, according to a recent analysis by the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University.
How significant of an impact can these splashy summits have unless delegates are able to turn promises into action at home?
