Well, that's a wrap COP29. What were main outcomes of the negotiations?

Hi all! I apologize for the lack of wrap-up and updates on the final outcomes of COP. I left Baku in a whirlwind of sickness, exhaustion, and in need of some space to process, decompress, and collect myself before writing about the end results of the conference.

I am back on campus and the numbness, the rollercoaster of emotional and informational processing I am experiencing has honestly been intense. Not just for me, but for my entire class. We spent the first day back all together after a week of break, sharing where we are at— teary eyed and clinging onto each other’s deep sense of understanding. The fact that we are all forever inexplicably bonded through this experience, the only ones that will ever truly understand what the last two and half weeks encompassed is something so comforting to lean on.

I am currently drafting a whole separate blog post on my personal reflections and where I am at emotionally, mindset wise, and in terms of the status of my hope coming out of COP29. So stay tuned for that in the coming days.

There is no way to encapsulate, explain, articulate in a succinct, sound-bite manner my experience at COP29. I have felt like these blogs themselves haven’t come close to achieving that. I have so many more anecdotes, stories, and observations swirling around in my head, that I desperately want to, need to, share.

As I reunite with my family, my friends, my professors I am struggling to answer the questions they all ask: How was it? How was COP29? How was Baku?

I have come to three words that work towards describing my experience: eye-opening, exhausting, emotional.

Just being in Baku, a beautiful city with the constant undercurrents of authoritarian force and ominous mystery, was a surreal, fascinating experience in of itself.

So, if you will stick around, I am planning to continue to post blogs that I started at COP29 and am working to finish on topics ranging from:

• Where my hope stands, moving forward from COP29

• What was it like being in Baku, Azerbaijan for an extended period of time?

• What the conditions were like on the ground in the venue on a day to day basis

• Gender dynamics and equity at COP29- an in depth exploration.

• To more take-aways from specific talks on soil regeneration, the power of climate story-telling, ect.

ALSO: Check out my classmates and I’s more specific Blogs via this link: https://sites.coloradocollege.edu/blockfeatures/

Learn about the controversy of nuclear energy, messaging of the US delegation at COP29, ect.!

Anyway, I first wanted to update you all on what the main negotiation outcomes of COP29 were. Last time I wrote, I left you hanging on the fact that it could possibly be an inconclusive COP.

The Presidency continues to boast how #COP29Delievered and that Baku was a “Breakthrough.” Was it? No.

It wasn’t inconclusive, but, especially for marginalized groups and most vulnerable communities, the outcomes from COP29 were extremely disappointing. In fact, disappointing is an understatement.

In the final hours of negotiations, concerted pressure, especially from the most vulnerable developing countries, resulted in a slight improvement on the shamefully low proposed finance target, the NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal for climate finance) from 250 billion USD per year for developing countries to advance climate action to 300 billion USD.

The goal is incredibly far from meeting the actual finance needs for effective climate mitigation and adaptation, estimated at about 4 trillion USD, bypassing the principles of equitable burden sharing and climate justice.

Many developing countries and civil society groups have expressed disappointment that the $300 billion goal, while significant, falls incredibly short of the trillions needed. For them, this feels like a failure of justice—a stark reminder of the gap between the urgency of the crisis and the pace of global action.

Another major topic of COP29 was how to take forward COP28’s energy package, the so-called “UAE consensus” in which countries agreed on the need to triple renewable energy capacity, double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, and phase out fossil fuels.

In short: parties failed to agree on how to take it forward, efforts to build upon the energy package were stalled. The talks have been pushed to next year.

Proposals to convene on an annual dedicated basis to implement the energy transition, agree on new goals for storage and grids, and produce annual progress reports on the transition away from fossil fuels were rejected.

The draft text calling on countries to reduce fossil fuel infrastructure and investments and develop “polluter pays,” policy was rejected. There wasn’t even a reiteration of the call to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

“COP 29 represents a step backwards on the hard-won UAE energy package consensus,” said Natalie Jones, policy advisor at International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Perhaps one of the most shocking elements of the COP29 outcomes and overall conference itself was the extreme backlash against the integration of gender, intersectionality, and human rights language across all policies and negotiations.

I went to COP29 with my specific centering focus for my research being gender as its broadly construed across COP29- in representation, gender dynamics and behavior on the ground, policy outcomes, ect.

Leading up to this COP, there was major momentum towards not only expanding the two primary existing gender just climate policy frameworks, the Gender Action Plan and Lima Work Programme on Gender, but also in terms of ensuring gender equity is integrated across all negotiations and draft texts.

There was an extremely troubling and shocking lack of political leadership and ambition from ALL the Parties, and the inclusion of gender specific language was a key sticking point across all negotiations. This includes within the Enhanced Lima Work Programme and its Gender Action Plan.

While there was a 10 year extension on the Lima Work Programme, overall, the opportunity to adopt a more nuanced and intersectional framing of gender issues was crushed.

The NCQG decision does not explicitly address human rights and the imperative of gender-responsive climate finance.

Negotiations across the board were marked by hours of pushback on language addressing human rights and equality. And to clarify- not just on advancements of gender and human rights, but pressure to roll back, erase already agreed upon gender and human rights provisions.

For example, a member of the Women and Gender Constituency that was in the technology centered negotiations, explained how the draft texts relating to technological advancement and exchange, which usually is marked by consensus and a decision by the first week of COP29, was marked by conflict and stalemate moving into the second week of the COP. She explained how this was rather “unprecedented” and the conflict all boiled down to the inclusion of gender provisions within the text.

The Women and Gender Constituency had to pivot their entire strategy, diminish their original demands coming into COP29 to solely “Hold the Line,” and seek to at the very least ensure gender and human rights language already in existence was preserved.

I thought at the very least, countries would be progressive enough to all agree, in this day and age, that basic human rights language is essential to climate policies. It's appalling.

The inexplicable shock and frustration in regards to this roll back of human rights and gender provisions for me, was heightened within the context of the recent Trump reelection as well as my classmates and my personal experiences with constant sexual harassment as young women at COP29, which I will go into in detail in my upcoming blog about Gender at COP29.

Overall, the outcomes and aftermath has left me with a gut punch of emotions that come in waves of grief, processing, and overwhelm. I am left having to reassess my hope, reframe my optimism, and walk away with a level of distraughtness, shock.

Nevertheless, I still hold hope- it's just been totally overhauled. It’s in the process of being reshaped (to be continued in another blog post as well).

Well there’s a little bit of wrap up.

I wanted to express my gratitude and appreciation for each and every one of your readership and support throughout this life-changing journey.

Getting to share this experience made its meaning magnitudes greater.