The COP29 Energy Day: Key Pledges and Highlights

It seems surreal that after almost three decades of annual climate conferences, with climate disasters mounting and emissions at record levels, that the opening speech of the COP29 Azerbaijan would praise the use of fossil fuels as “a gift from God”. After a start like this, even the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ sobering description of 2024 as “a masterclass in climate destruction” and the call for COP29 2024 participants to acknowledge the need for emergency emissions reductions as a number one priority on the agenda weren’t enough to instil hope that this year would be a step forward. Unless anything changes in the dying minutes of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, we are looking at yet another year of business as usual while weather disasters continue to mount.

The COP29 Energy Day: Energy Transition, Fossil Fuels and Global Climate Crisis

During the first days of COP29 Baku, the Global Carbon Budget presented its latest findings – despite nations’ pledges a year ago, global fossil fuel CO₂ emissions in 2024 would jump 0.8%. This exceeds the average annual growth rate over the past decade and will take CO₂ emissions 8% higher than in 2015 before the Paris Agreement. According to the report conducted by an international team of 120 scientists, at current rates, the remaining carbon budget for a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C is sufficient for six years starting from January 2025. Meanwhile, the UNEP warns that the current emissions reduction trajectory is taking us to 3.1°C levels of warming by 2100.

Yet, the International Institute for Sustainable Development expects a massive surge of new fossil fuel project permits that, if fully tapped, could account for 15 billion tonnes of emissions – around 25% of global annual emissions.

According to a report by Global Witness released during COP29, the 30 most profitable fossil fuel companies alone made USD 400 billion per year on average in profits since the Paris Agreement – enough to cover the minimum loss and damage financing needed by climate-vulnerable countries. Furthermore, Urgewald finds that oil and gas companies, on average, spend USD 61 billion per year to search for new oil and gas reserves – approximately 90 times the national commitments for the Loss and Damage Fund (USD 702 million). In addition, fossil fuel subsidies have hit all-time highs, with funding for such projects quadrupling between 2021 and 2022.

All this made it crucial for parties at COP29 to deepen the dialogue on matters such as reducing emissions and accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels. However, halfway through the conference, the prospects don’t look bright.

New NDCs Announced

Noting that current NDCs would reduce emissions by 2.6% by 2030, a fraction of the 43% reduction required to achieve the Paris Agreement target, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has called for new NDCs to be credible, ambitious, sector and gas-specific.

The UAE, host of COP28, which already revealed its NDC at the start of November, was criticised for lack of ambition. The country plans to cut emissions by 47% by 2035, and its target excludes exported emissions and includes offsetting. Furthermore, there is no improvement in the 2030 target.

“The UAE’s so-called climate target is essentially a greenwashing exercise, and it decided to bury its bad news on the day of the US election results,” said Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org.

Brazil, COP30’s host, also announced a new 2035 emissions reduction target. The country aims to reduce emissions by 59-67% from 2005 levels. The primary tool to achieve the target would be ensuring zero deforestation by 2035, given that emissions from logging, wildfires and agriculture are its biggest source. However, analysts have criticised the lack of focus on fossil fuel expansion, describing the target as insufficient and misaligned to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

During the climate talks, the United Kingdom pledged an ambitious 81% emissions reduction target by 2035 compared with 1990. The country already closed its last fossil fuel plant earlier this year and also plans to phase out gas by 2030 and ban new licenses for oil and gas exploration.

Expectations are now high for the US to submit an NDC at the G20 meeting to prove its commitment to global climate action before Donald Trump enters office. A US envoy at COP29 even urged China to lead global climate action.

The NDC announcements at COP29 have set the stage for the rest of the world to follow suit and release their pledges in 2025, with a deadline for implementation in 2035. 

Energy Initiatives on Energy Storage, Grids, Green Energy and Hydrogen

During the COP29 Energy Day, the COP29 Presidency launched three energy initiatives to “take forward” the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake on renewable energy and hydrogen.

The COP29 Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge commits to deploying 1,500 GW of energy storage globally by 2030. It also targets adding or refurbishing 25 million km of grids globally by the decade’s end and an additional 65 million km by 2040.

According to an analysis by Ember, the surge in battery manufacturing can meet the global storage goal eight times, meaning the goal is entirely achievable. However, the experts note that the grids and hydrogen goals need extra attention.

The COP29 green energy pledge, Green Energy Zones and Corridors, commits to promoting green energy across the communities most in need by developing larger intraregional and interregional interconnected power grids.

The COP29 Hydrogen Declaration aims to scale up renewable, clean/zero-emission and low-carbon hydrogen production and “accelerate the decarbonisation of existing hydrogen production from unabated fossil fuels.” 

Launch of the Global Matchmaking Platform (GMP) For Industrial Decarbonisation and Emerging and Developing Economies

The GMP aims to accelerate decarbonisation in heavy-emitting industries through joint efforts of various donor and partner organisations. The initiative will prioritise working in emerging and developing economies by matching existing country-specific needs with global technical and financial assistance to reduce emissions in energy and emissions-intensive industrial sectors. 

The GMP is already accepting formal application requests from interested countries, institutions and donors willing to participate. 

Launch of the Accelerated Partnership For Renewable Energy in Central Asia

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), alongside Azerbaijan’s Minister of Energy, launched a framework of regional cooperation among Central Asian countries to accelerate investments in clean energy in the region. The initiative also aims to enhance local connectivity and accelerate renewable energy deployment and trade. 

Article 6 and a Carbon Credits Market Pledge

During the first day of COP29, parties adopted key rules covering the trade of carbon credits. This eases the establishment of a UN-governed system in which countries can buy credits for removing or avoiding emissions through activities abroad, like planting trees elsewhere, and counting the progress toward their own emissions targets.

However, analysts are concerned that the process was rushed, opening the door for richer countries and companies to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying meaningful emissions reduction efforts at home. They have also pointed to a history of offset projects overpromising and underdelivering.

Furthermore, the measure is already facing criticism from Indigenous communities, arguing that it would not protect their rights. 

The Fossil Fuel Shadow Looming Over Stalled Progress and Derailed Pledges at COP29 2024

The signs from COP29’s host in the lead-up to the conference were all about discourse. On the one hand, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev stated in his opening remarks that we are “on a road to ruin, and these are not just problems of the future”.

Yet, just days before the start of COP29, the conference’s chief executive and Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, Elnur Soltanov, was secretly filmed agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at COP29 and speaking of a future that includes fossil fuels “perhaps forever”. 

In the year of hosting COP29, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan struck deals potentially worth over USD 8 billion. The findings confirm a pattern of UN host countries using the climate conference as an opportunity to clinch oil and gas deals, including when ADNOC sought oil and gas deals worth USD 100 billion in 2023.

Furthermore, the COP29 Presidency scrapped its plans to introduce a new voluntary USD 1 billion climate fund for fossil fuel-producing companies and countries to pay in. The cited reason was that the initiative would have shifted the focus away from the NCQG.

At the same time, the more than 1,770 fossil fuel lobbyists present at the conference outnumbered the delegations of almost every country at climate talks in Baku, which sparked protests by activists. For reference, the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations at the conference have only a combined 1,033 delegates at COP29. In addition, the Azerbaijani government invited at least 132 oil and gas company bosses and staff as “guests” in what The Guardian describes as a “red carpet treatment.” There were also almost 500 carbon capture lobbyists present.

With that in mind, it is no surprise that the COP29 discussions barely mentioned the idea of phasing out fossil fuels.

As a result, frontline communities and country leaders admitted to feeling discouraged and that their calls for support are unlikely to lead to anything tangible. Some even withdrew from COP29, describing it as “a total waste of time”. Furthermore, a group of climate leaders deemed COPs no longer fit for purpose, urging the UN to no longer hold the conferences in petrostates that work to derail the clean energy transition. 

The Pledges in the Final Days of COP29 Azerbaijan Are Crucial 

Hosting a climate conference in a petrostate that has previously detained critics of its oil and gas policies and expecting a breakthrough on fossil fuels phaseout policies is unrealistic, to say the least.

The prospects that we will see significant progress on actionable and time-bound pledges related to phasing out fossil fuels by the end of COP29 aren’t promising. According to the Financial Times, while the EU is pushing strongly for more decisive action and climate rules, its efforts are facing strong pushback from petrostates and countries like China and India. As a result, the more likely scenario is a strongly worded final text that “supports” or “calls for” moving away from fossil fuels, while any tangible results will possibly be delayed for the NDC updates in early 2025.

However, previous COPs have taught us that the most important decisions that make the final text are usually struck in the dying hours. While the COP29 Presidency has already taken a major step towards getting grids and storage on the agenda, it should now focus on making them a part of the COP outcome document. Importantly, there is still time for parties to accelerate emissions reduction discussions and pledge to a concrete fossil fuel phaseout to avoid letting 1.5°C slip out of reach. In the words of the UN chief in his opening speech: “Even as temperatures rise, the implementation of our agreements must claw them back.”