COP29: Opening Ceremony

Opening remarks

In his opening speech, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, underscored the significance of COP29, by showing delegates a picture of his neighbour ‘Florence’:

“The lady I’m standing with, in this picture, is my neighbour, Florence, in Carriacou. In July this year, this was us, standing in all that remained of her home after the devastation of Hurricane Beryl.

At 85, Florence has become one of the millions of victims of runaway climate change this year alone.

And there are people like Florence in every country on Earth. Knocked down, and getting back up again.

This UNFCCC process is the only place we have to address the rampant climate crisis, and to credibly hold each other to account to act on it.”

The Agenda

One of the main goals of COP29 is to establish a new climate financing agreement to replace the $100 billion pledge made in 2009. Although this target was achieved in 2023, many argue that the amount falls short of what is needed to address the rapidly increasing air and sea temperatures.

Simon Stiell highlighted the key areas being negotiated at COP29:

1. Agreement of a new global climate finance goal
2. The finalisation of Article 6, to get international carbon markets up and running
3. Agreement of adaptation targets for countries to put measures in place for assessing the impacts of climate change
4. Encouragement to countries to deliver their third-generation national climate plans, so-called Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs, by next year (February 2025).

In light of the UN World Meteorological Organisation’s statement that 2024 is on track to be the world’s warmest year on record, a key focus for all parties at COP29 will be how they contribute to limiting long-term global temperature rises to the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Despite clean energy and infrastructure investment reaching $2 trillion in 2024, almost twice that of fossil fuels, the European climate service projected last week that 2024 would be the first year to exceed the 1.5 degree global warming limit. In a year which has seen humanitarian emergencies across the globe caused by severe heatwaves, storms and flooding, Simon Stiell’s speech highlighting the ownership that all nations must take to successfully achieve climate change goals is particularly apposite:

“In these halls, we negotiate on specific pieces of the puzzle each year. It can feel far away from what’s happening in Florence’s living room. We cannot afford to continue up-ending lives and livelihoods in every nation - so let’s make this real.”

Early Progress

Despite some noticeable absences of world leaders from major countries at this year's summit, an early agreement on a long-standing impasse is a positive sign for the progress possible over the next two weeks. Namely, the COP29 delegates agreed to allow richer countries to partially offset some of their atmosphere-heating pollution, by investing in clean energy projects or forests in developing nations.

Stay up to date with our daily COP29 updates over the next two weeks to see whether this is one of many positives still to come.