BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 23, 2024 —The 29th UN Climate Conference (COP29) concluded today, with an atrociously inadequate new climate finance goal of $300 billion, after wealthy nations refused to pay up in line with their legal obligations to provide sufficient climate finance to the Global South—say experts at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). COP29 delivered a watered-down outcome on financial commitments, and ignored the call for climate accountability, marking yet another missed opportunity for decisive action on the climate crisis.
Developing countries had demanded at least 1.3 trillion per year in climate finance for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage—just a fraction of what is spent each year by rich countries on fossil fuel subsidies and war.
Wealthy countries failed to meet their legal obligations to provide their share in debt-free public finance, phase out fossil fuels without dangerous loopholes or distractions like carbon markets, and uphold human rights and civic space.
“COP29 was a dumpster fire. Except it’s not trash that’s burning— it’s our planet. And developed countries are holding both the matches and the firehose. Their refusal to pay up for climate action and harm, or to phase out fossil fuels, in line with their legal obligations, denies Global South countries their due and puts a livable future at risk,” said Nikki Reisch, CIEL’s Director of Climate & Energy Program. “Big polluters are to blame for this insulting outcome. For decades, they have diluted their legal obligations and blocked climate negotiations from tackling the climate crisis with the urgency, ambition, and equity needed. By allowing carbon removal offsets into the climate regime and fossil fuel lobbyists into these negotiations, they’ve blown loopholes through ambition and let the fox into the henhouse. The same rich countries that will not pony up resources to ensure a global transition away from fossil fuels are propping up the fossil fuel industry with trillions of dollars in subsidies and investments in new projects.”
Reisch highlighted that “By shirking their legal duties, big polluters sought to make the Paris Agreement go up in smoke. Accountability for the climate crisis will not end with the weak agreement reached at COP29. Civil society movements will keep demanding justice, and polluters will continue to be held accountable in courtrooms and the court of public opinion around the world. The climate hearings at the International Court of Justice in December offer a chance to clarify states’ legal obligations under international law. That clarity may prove a powerful antidote to the political inertia and lowest common denominator outcomes on full display in Baku.”
Other legal, climate, and human rights experts from the Center for International Environmental Law noted that COP29 yielded little progress on finance, fossil fuel phaseout, or safeguarding human rights in climate action. After bulldozing the final obstacles to a UNFCCC-sanctioned carbon market on the first day, COP29 ended with the adoption of rules that lacked any checks on carbon offsets that don’t deliver emissions impacts or violate rights.
“Paying to pollute will never be a climate solution, and carbon markets will never be climate finance. Creating a Paris-sanctioned carbon market that could be more dangerous than the scandal-ridden voluntary carbon markets, is not a win for people or the planet. It’s a win for big polluters and carbon cowboys. And it does not make up for failing to provide public finance. Agreeing to weak rules that lack transparency, accountability, or meaningful oversight is not a cooperative approach for achieving more ambitious climate action, but a recipe for disaster,” said Erika Lennon, CIEL Senior Attorney. “With the gavelling of standards on methodologies and removals, the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism has flung open its doors to removal activities that are nothing more than a dangerous distraction. Going forward it is essential to ensure this mechanism enforces its standards and properly ensures that other relevant international environmental agreements – including those that place a moratorium on geoengineering – apply to activities.”
Moving forward with operationalizing carbon markets provides an escape hatch for polluters to continue failing to phase out. Paying to pollute will never be a climate solution, and carbon markets will never be climate finance, but shift the burden to those least responsible for the climate crisis.
“We’ve witnessed a huge lobbying effort at this year’s climate talks from companies promoting speculative and unreliable carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology as a climate solution. But CCS has repeatedly failed to deliver. Instead it serves only to create loopholes and justifications to allow polluters to keep on polluting,” said Rachel Kennerley, CIEL Carbon Capture Global Campaigner, said. “With 480 CCS lobbyists at COP29, it is clear the fossil fuel industry is investing heavily in selling CCS to secure their future despite the need for climate action. Unfortunately, countries seem to be buying into the pipe dream. The COP29 outcome wedges open windows for this proven to fail technology and other false solutions like carbon markets, gas, and hydrogen. Carbon Capture and Storage is siphoning away energy and money from the real climate action we need.”
The agreed deal falls far short of what is needed to ensure a rapid and equitable global phaseout of fossil fuels, adaptation to a changing climate, or protection of the rights of those least responsible for but most harmed by mounting climate impacts.
“The climate finance outcome shoved down climate-vulnerable countries’ throats at COP29 is the definition of a bad deal. The new climate finance goal of $300 billion is a drop in the ocean of the massive and growing needs, effectively denying any form of justice for those on the frontlines of the climate crisis and pushing developing countries deeper into debt. Without a real commitment to providing grants-based finance and riddled with loopholes to avoid any obligation to pay, this agreement is yet another demonstration of wealthy countries’ continued attempts to undermine the UN climate agreements and escape long-standing obligations under international law,” said Lien Vandamme, CIEL Senior Campaigner Human Rights and Climate Change. The exclusion of loss and damage from the climate finance goal is outrageous. It denies major historical polluters’ obligations to remedy the massive harm that the climate crisis is causing, and the removal of all references to human rights from the finance goal is another indication that the climate negotiations are evolving in isolation from existing legal norms. A climate finance goal—especially one encompassing private finance—without human rights safeguards will compound harms to communities and ecosystems. The International Court of Justice’s upcoming clarification of the legal obligations of States in the context of climate change could not be more timely and urgent.”
The negotiations, held in a country with a track record of human rights violations and with significant restrictions on civic space, saw substantial backsliding on human rights, reflective of the broader political climate in many countries this year.
“The climate emergency demands bold action fueled by public participation and accountability, yet COP29 fell far short of both these standards. Hosted in Azerbaijan, where dissent was crushed through arrests of civil society members and journalists ahead of the conference, the COP29 mirrored the host country’s disdain for basic rights,” said Sébastien Duyck, CIEL Senior Attorney and Human Rights and Climate Change Manager. “The UN compounded the problem by curtailing speech within the conference, even as fossil fuel lobbyists thrived, working to dilute climate commitments. If future COPs are to matter, States and the UN must reject corporate interference and fiercely protect the civic spaces needed to drive urgent climate action.”
Camilla Pollera, Human Rights and Climate Change Program Associate noted that “COP29’s failure to prioritize gender justice is yet another demonstration of the wrong turn taken in Baku. Despite the critical need for ambitious gender-just climate outcomes, negotiations faced persistent pushbacks against anything that could strengthen the Lima Work Programme on Gender, culminating in a weak outcome. Women – in all their diversity – on the frontlines and standing up for environmental rights are facing unique threats, as they challenge the exploitation of land and natural resources while confronting entrenched gender discrimination. The final decision is a missed opportunity to ensure comprehensive protection and support for women environmental human rights defenders. The absence of a political commitment at the COP to protect their fundamental rights further marginalizes their voices and weakens the pursuit of just and effective climate action. Now, the new Gender Action Plan must fill this gap. ”
Media Contact
In Baku: Maria Frausto, Communications Director + 1 202 569-8107 (Signal and WhatsApp), press@ciel.org
In Geneva:
- Rossella Recupero, Communications Campaign Specialist + 41 76 216 5976 (Signal), +39 340 47 39 827 (WhatsApp), press@ciel.org
- Niccolò Sarno, Media Relations Specialist + 41 22 506 80 37 (Signal and WhatsApp), press@ciel.org