Kellogg Fellows attend COP29 in hope for a better future
Earlier this month, the UN Climate Change Conference for 2024 (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, brought together around 200 countries to develop plans for addressing climate change. Given that global progress is currently ‘falling miles short’ of what is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change, there is intense pressure for these negotiations to lead to more ambitious actions.
A delegation of University of Oxford researchers, including two Kellogg Fellows, were able to attend the conference in person, with many more following the proceedings virtually. Throughout the summit (11-22 November), they were able to contribute their expertise and present new research findings to inform insightful discussions.
Dr Injy Johnstone is a Kellogg Research Member of Common Room and Research Associate in net-zero-aligned offsetting at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Throughout her time at COP29, she focused on enhancing the net-zero alignment of carbon markets. Her work involved active participation in the Article 6 negotiations (which aims to enable countries to trade carbon credits) and identifying gaps and opportunities to scale effective carbon removal solutions.
At the outset, Injy said that her hope “is that negotiators will see environmental integrity as central to rather than a barrier to Article 6 operationalisation and that, ultimately, it sets a new global baseline from which to go further and faster on climate mitigation.”
We asked Injy for her thoughts during the second week, and she said: “Many have been in a state of limbo for many waiting on critical next steps in terms of the negotiations, a lack of outcomes from the G20 over in Rio has led some to conclude that an outcome on finance will not get across the line. New text on the other finance issue–the market mechanisms of Article 6–were released lending more hope to an outcome being reached on them, though that will be subject to Parties’ responses to some ‘red-lines’ being overrun. The Presidency, with the help of Ministerial Co-facilitators, is now working on fresh texts on many of the key issue areas with plans to release early tomorrow morning – so all eyes are on what the penultimate day holds tomorrow!”
What Injy was hoping for, did materialise. Countries have agreed on the final building blocks that set out how carbon markets will operate under the Paris Agreement, making country-to-country trading and a carbon crediting mechanism fully operational.
Dr Ana Nacvalovaite is a Research Fellow in Sovereign Wealth Funds and at Kellogg’s Centre for Mutual & Co-owned Business. Her work focuses on directing sovereign wealth fund investments into alternative business models, including cooperatives, employee-owned companies, and social enterprises aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. During the first week of COP29, the College shared daily social media updates featuring Ana summarising key discussions from each day. You can view our COP29 videos on Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
She said: “COP29 is over, and it marked a significant advancement in climate finance with nearly 200 countries agreeing on new collective quantified goal on climate finance. It aims to triple financial support for developing nations from $100 to $300 billion annually by 2035. This means we’re scaling up to $1.3 trillion annually from public and private sources. There are other key outcomes such as facilitating country-to-country trading of carbon credits and substantial progress in transparent climate reporting, with 13 countries submitting their first biennial transparency report. We have to focus on the positives. Although there is still a lot of work to do, there are some wonderful outcomes, such as enhancing the involvement of indigenous people in climate action and extending the Lima Work Programme on gender and climate change.”
Dr Ana Nacvalovaite and the First woman Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo Judith Suminwa Tuluka.