QUNO Geneva’s Human Impacts of Climate Change Programme has been attending the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan since the start of the conference on 11 November. Accredited under the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Lindsey Fielder Cook and Johan Cavert are representing QUNO during negotiations.

As many as 60,000 people – country negotiators, UN, civil society, private sector, and lobbyists -  arrived in Azerbaijan with the need to urgently advance multilateral commitments to mitigation, adaption, loss and damage, and related climate finance. QUNO has been active throughout both weeks following negotiations, distributing publications, coordinating with human rights and peace constituencies, hosting an official UNFCCC side event on peace and climate, and participating in inter-faith dialogue and discussion. 

QUNO is distributing our recent briefing paper, “Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR): What is Sustainable and Just?” written by Dr. Olaf Corry and Dr. Duncan McLaren. The paper addresses physical and equity limits to CDR and its failure to transform the root causes driving climate change. It has been well-received and has sparked engaging conversation on one of the major topics on the delegates’ agenda.

Negotiations have not advanced productively. Deep polarization on a range of topics remains, most centrally over the new collective quantified goal on climate finance. Such stalemates are disheartening and do not bode well for the possibility of reaching a final deal to provide the trillions of dollars of climate finance commitments urgently needed by vulnerable populations and developing countries. Negotiations over the inclusion of language on gender and human rights, just transition, mitigation, and contentious carbon markets have also been heated and found little common ground. Such breakdowns are particularly concerning as, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have “a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. 

Political organizing and actions at COP have provided a clear call to conscience, highlighting the damage and destruction climate change is inflicting on the poor and vulnerable, calling for climate reparations, and showcasing the inverse relationship between exorbitant military spending and paltry investments in climate funds. 

In contrast to the breakdown of dialogue happening throughout the conference, QUNO’s side event on peace and climate featured panelists who spoke from differing experiences about a shared vision for how to take climate action that will truly make us safe. Moderated by Lindsey Fielder-Cook, the panel featured Deborah Burton of Tipping Point North South; Shirine Jurdi of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; Harriet Mackaill-Hill of International Alert; Duncan McLaren of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law; Andrew Okem representing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Seventh Assessment Report; and Lucy Plummer of Soka Gakkai International. They suggested pathways of hope grounded in adherence to scientific research, honest assessments of the impacts of CDR, systemic transformation through the cultivation of personal sustainability, and investment in just and equitable climate finance rather than increases in military spending.