The COP29 Presidency will convene today a ministerial dialogue on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
In a Sept 27 statement, the Presidency calls the dialogue a “significant escalation” of the NCQG negotiations to the political level, “reflecting the COP29 Presidency's commitment to delivering a fair and ambitious outcome at COP29 in Baku this November”.
COP29 will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from Nov 11 to Nov 22.
The dialogue, chaired by COP29 President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev, is expected to bring together high-level representatives from a broad range of countries, including the chairs of negotiating groups. It will provide a platform for direct engagement on key political issues to advance deliberations on the NCQG, which is set to be agreed at COP29.
When parties signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the deal introduced the NCQG. The NCQG is meant to replace the existing climate finance goal of US$100 billion per year, and aims to provide a more realistic and ambitious financial framework.
Ahead of the meeting, Babayev says negotiations to agree on a “fair and ambitious” new climate finance goal are entering their “critical final stage”. “The COP29 Presidency is intensively building bridges between the political leaders who must overcome the most difficult issues to land a deal at COP29. These are complex negotiations — if they were easy, they would have been resolved already — and ministers will succeed or fail together.”
See also: COP29 Presidency sets out agenda, emphasises upcoming work on New Collective Quantified Goal
Ahead of Friday’s meeting, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell says the climate crisis can only be averted if every country has the means to take “much stronger” climate actions, slashing emissions and building resilient communities and supply chains. “That's why an ambitious new climate finance goal at COP29 must be core business for every government. The world will be watching, and expecting governments to stand and deliver at COP29, under the Presidency of Azerbaijan.”
Azerbaijan has stated that agreeing to a fair and ambitious NCQG is the “top negotiating priority” of its COP29 Presidency. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov is expected to deliver a keynote address to the gathered parties that includes a strong call for the importance of finding common ground and delivering the NCQG this year in Baku.
The Presidency will also convene an informal Heads of Delegation meeting on Oct 8 in Baku, to be followed by the formal High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on the NCQG on Oct 9, and pre-COP meeting on Oct 10 and 11.
See also: Climate Week NYC is the unofficial climate summit of the year
The COP29 Presidency recently appointed Ministers Yasmine Fouad of Egypt and Chris Bowen of Australia as the Ministerial Pairs on the NCQG, and tasked them to start informal political consultations on this topic.
This is while the technical Ad Hoc Work Programme co-chairs prepare to publish a framework for a draft negotiating text in the coming weeks.
The COP29 Presidency also confirmed its intention to raise the NCQG in all available multilateral forums, including the upcoming World Bank annual meetings, as part of its strategy to build consensus and drive progress on the Presidency’s top negotiating priority.
Azerbaijan announced on Sept 25 that it will fund flights, accommodation and daily allowances for four members of each delegation from the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) at COP29, as well as in the preparatory meetings preceding the conference.
Singapore is among the SIDS’ 57 nations — or parties, as they are referred to at the annual climate conference. The 39 sovereign states and 18 dependent territories that are members of SIDS span the Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea.
Climate Week NYC 2024, which began on Sept 22 and will conclude on Sept 29, has been called the “unofficial climate summit of the year”. It started alongside the United Nations General Assembly, and has so far hosted a range of ministerial dialogues and corporate panels.
Azerbaijan is due to host a two-week UN climate summit in November that would typically be the biggest moment on the calendar. But COP29 is expected to draw far fewer business executives and bankers than last year’s COP28 event in the financial hub Dubai, according to Bloomberg.
See also: Azerbaijan will fund four members of each Small Island Developing State to attend COP29
COP29 could also pose lower stakes diplomatically. Last year’s COP28 saw the first-ever Global Stocktake (GST), a mid-term review of progress towards the 2015 Paris Agreement that will be held every five years.
The COP29 Presidency unveiled in June its two-pillared plan to “enhance ambition and enable action”. This involves supporting the parties, or countries, to “raise their ambition” through their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), among others.
Lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev said then that the COP29 Presidency aims to broker a “fair and ambitious new climate finance goal, finalise Article 6, strengthen global financial institutions and ensure the private sector commits to climate action”.
