IRENA: The Future of the Local Community and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCOLP): Azerbaijan’s ambition to double its renewable energy capacity by 2020

“To actually unchain ourselves from the colonial nature of the COP itself,” he said. “The COP is predicated on the erasure of Indigenous nationhood. We don’t see change until the nationhood of Indigenous peoples is recognized and incorporated, and that’s why it’s built around state nationhood.

The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform will focus on building global Indigenous solidarity and ensuring that there is no additional harm to Indigenous peoples.

Eriel Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action and an Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation member, says Indigenous peoples are still largely relegated to the sidelines.

People from the Indigenous community have a lot of power at these meetings. They can give advice to states that are willing to listen to Indigenous peoples’ desires and needs when it comes to negotiated text and agreements.

Now Azerbaijan has set a new, ambitious goal for the summit — to increase global energy storage six-fold. Stored energy, often with batteries, can backstop renewable energy when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

Over 130 countries pledged to triple their renewable capacity last year. 95 percent of the world’s electricity demand can be seen in the EU and 96 countries. It found that only eight countries — all within the European Union — had actually updated their national renewable energy targets over the past year (before late October). Their updated national targets would only increase global renewables capacity by a meager four gigawatts, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Countries’ existing plans in 2023 were already enough to double global renewable energy capacity. The report says that it would take more than the goal of tripling capacity to do so.

IRENA’s director-general says, “Achieving this goal is still possible, but each year the target falls further out of reach.” We shared a commitment at the meeting. It is time for us to deliver.

The Breakthrough Institute: Donald Trump’s plan to rein in global warming and prepare communities for the challenges that come inevitably come from increasing investments in fossil fuels

According to a report from S&P Global Commodity Insights, the world is investing more money into exploring for and producing fossil fuels. President-elect Trump has promised to champion fossil fuels and cut investments for solutions that reduce climate pollution, like solar and wind energy, and large batteries. Trump said he will “terminate” Biden’s signature climate legislation.

The industrialized countries set a goal of giving developing nations $100 billion a year by 2020 to deal with climate change. In 2015, countries extended the pledge to 2025. They said they would set a new goal to reflect the needs of developing countries before the old one expired. That will be the new target to be negotiate during the meeting.

The new fund that was created last year to compensate vulnerable countries for harms caused by climate change has caused a lot of debate. While some countries have made pledges, payments have yet to be sent out as countries debate how the fund will be administered.

Money is what success is about, says the director of energy and development at the nonprofit The Breakthrough Institute. “What we really want to see is an increase in resources to poor countries that will actually enable them to tackle climate change. Instead, what we are seeing are these pronouncements.”

The annual meeting is a chance for world leaders, as well as scientists, activists and corporate executives, to hash out plans to rein in global warming, and to prepare communities for threats they already face from rising temperatures. The United States, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas pollution, with Donald Trump in charge, has raised questions about whether they will continue working on climate initiatives.

The Challenge of Climate Finance and the Trump-Mike Era: How Do World Banks Plan to Ensure COP29?” Is Lesser Right

“I remain very optimistic on the technology side,” says Rich Lesser, global chair of Boston Consulting Group. “The challenge is that the timeline to do this is not set by us.”

The goal is to have $1 trillion a year in climate finance. The outcome of this year’s UN Conference of the Parties on ClimateChange, COP29, will be based on getting a commitment of this size.

It requires virtually every country to pledge how much planet-warming pollution they’ll cut and to update those plans every few years. To limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to temperatures in the late 1800s, and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, is the objective.

“President-elect Trump has made very clear that he won’t wait six months to pull out of the Paris agreement like he did in his last term,” says Alden Meyer, senior associate at climate change think tank E3G. “He will pull out on day one.”

If the U.S. withdraws, the process takes a year. The threat has already altered the diplomatic landscape. At the Baku summit, countries won’t rely on U.S. leadership as they would have if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election, Meyer says.

Meyer says that people will look to see other nations pick up the slack after Trump’s victory. The European Union and China are included.

Climate Change Summit: What’s happening in the epoch of progress and how to protect ourselves from the effects of our dependence on fossil fuels

Industrialized countries like the United States built their wealth producing and using fossil fuels — and that’s driven most of the planetary warming so far. Developing nations, on the other hand, have contributed far less pollution. They are suffering disproportionate harm because of their smaller economies.

Developing nations are in a bind. Donations will probably be more than enough to help them, but the amount of help they need is much smaller. And they’ll be relying on wealthy neighbors that have been unreliable.

At these conferences, held every 12 months, everyone has a microphone—small islands with 10,000 inhabitants sit next to the giant countries of the world as they try to make decisions on how to curb climate change and its impacts.

The meeting kicks off today with a plenary, and tomorrow will hear from heads of state and their environment ministers. They will then make way for the negotiators and so-called sherpas: the people who prepare the text of the conference’s decisions.

To avoid stalemate, these final decisions are approved by consensus rather than voted on; approval is obtained in the absence of overt objections, though the decisions’ text may be repeatedly amended in order to reach an agreement. Here is what you should look out for.

The new report states that Governments’ ambitions have not moved despite the fact that renewable markets have moved.

Even though climate action isn’t on Congress’s agenda, renewables can grow and industry forecasts look brighter than what’s reflected in national policies. Solar and wind are already more affordable power sources than fossil fuels in most of the world, with solar deployment on track to see a 29 percent increase in installations this year compared to last, according to Ember’s estimates. There was an 87 percent increase in solar installations in 2023.

Do Clean Energy and Climate Negotiations Have a Trump-Inspired Impact on the U.S. Climate and Clean Energy Sectors?

Trump has also said he would rescind unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion in federal funding on climate and clean energy and has triggered more than $200 billion in clean energy investment in the US.

A Trump-inspired “retreat” on renewable energy could be a boon to competitors including China that already dominate clean energy markets. According to a recent analysis, the repeal of the inflation reduction act would cause a blow to manufacturing and trade in the U.S. as well as giving other countries $80 billion in investment opportunities.

After all, an underlying question gnaws at every round of climate negotiations: how big of an impact can these splashy summits have unless delegates can turn promises into action at home?