COP29 – the 2024 Climate COP - gets underway this week. World leaders, policy-makers, diplomats and activists will converge on Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss the world’s progress towards the goals of United Nations climate treaties.
The Climate COP is the most significant event on the global climate calendar.
What is COP?
COPs stand for ‘Conference of the Parties’, i.e. the countries that have agreed to participate in and be bound by the UN treaties.
COPs are the main decision-making bodies of the United Nations treaty bodies. For example:
Why do COPs matter to business?
While the summits have been criticised for being ‘talking shops’, COPs serve to restate the importance of tackling the crises caused by climate change, biodiversity collapse and desertification that affects businesses and citizens worldwide.
What is decided at COP filters down to organisations through legislation and policy, like Europe’s EU Green Deal, Ireland’s Climate Action Plans, through investors’ continued demands for projects that are aligned to climate targets to meet their own portfolio requirements, and to citizens adapting to the effect of disasters exacerbated by the ongoing climate and biodiversity crises.
What has happened at previous COPs?
Previous COPs have led to momentous agreements, the most significant of which was the Paris Agreement in 2015. This Agreement challenged the world to keep dangerous global warming to a level of 1.5° above pre-industrial levels.
In 2021, at the Glasgow COP, the International Sustainability Standards Boards (ISSB) was announced. Under the auspices of the International Federation of Reporting Standards (IFRS), this board has international support with its work to develop sustainability disclosure standards backed by the G7, the G20, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), the Financial Stability Board, African Finance Ministers and Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from more than 40 jurisdictions.
2021 also saw the formation of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a global coalition of leading financial institutions committed to accelerating the decarbonization of the economy.
At COP27 in Egypt, a new loss and damage fund was set up for those countries most severely impacted by the effects of climate change (floods, drought, desertification, and land loss due to rising sea-levels) and COP28 last year saw the ‘global stocktake’, required under the Paris Agreement to assess progress made since 2015 and show what needs to be done to address gaps by 2030.
This COP will be significant for finance, as the focus of negotiations will be the setting of a new finance target for tackling climate change. The New Collective Quantified Goal, or NCQG, will replace a goal initially agreed in 2009, when developed nations pledged to provide $100 billion annually in climate financing for developing countries.
Did you know?
The first Climate COP – COP01 – was in Berlin in 1994. It was presided over by the-then Environmental Minister, Angela Merkel.
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