COP29: Introducing this year's International Climate Conference

Each year, IEMA publishes a briefing note on the Conference of the Parties – IEMA’s Senior Policy and Engagement Lead for Climate Change and Energy Chloë Fiddy looks at the key topics on the agenda at COP29 in Azerbaijan later this month.

COP is an annual, decision-making meeting of the countries that have signed up to the original 1992 United Nations climate change agreement. Otherwise known as Parties, there are 198 countries that attend the Conference. The overarching target was set at the Paris Agreement in 2015 – this was the legally binding agreement made by each Party to limit global warming to well below 2 ˚C, and ideally not more than 1.5 ˚C , compared to pre-industrial levels.

Each annual conference since then works to reach consensus on the reductions in emissions needed to mitigate the damage caused by emissions. Each country must decide on its own nationally determined contribution to this effort. For nations unable to meet their own reduction targets, the mechanisms for carbon trading (‘Article 6’) are also in debate.

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Given that efforts towards meaningful mitigation have failed, climate change is now a current problem and no longer a future risk. Therefore the conferences also discuss and plan the adaptive capacity of communities around the world to be resilient to climate change. Where both mitigation and adaptation have failed, communities experience Loss and Damage of and to assets both tangible such as infrastructure and societal such as ways of life.

Wrapping all of these issues is of course the matter of money – climate finance is the other huge topic for discussion.

Each of these issues are discussed in the briefing note – in which we give a fairly unvarnished view on the background challenges, including market failures, and the changes we want to see.

The key outcomes that IEMA would like to see from COP 29 include:

  • Acknowledgment that green knowledge is a prerequisite for green growth;

  • Recognition that green skills are a basic necessity, at all levels of the education systems and across the whole economy;

  • Agreements reached that mandate countries to develop appropriate workforce strategies to ensure the successful delivery of their biodiversity and climate change plans;

  • International commitment to submit and deliver vastly more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions;

  • Transparent monitoring of carbon trading mechanisms to ensure their effectiveness; and

  • Globally equitable solutions on finance for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.

Download IEMA's guide here


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Chloë Fiddy

Senior Policy and Engagement Lead

Chloë is the Senior Policy and Engagement Lead for Climate Change and Energy at IEMA. Within this remit she works on projects relating to greenhouse gas reporting and transition planning and reporting, as well as adaptation. She is particularly interested in finding practical solutions and approaches which lead to standardised, replicable and trustworthy reporting, so that decision-makers have better data to work with. Previously Chloë has worked at senior levels in the manufacturing and retail sectors, and in climate and sustainable development planning roles in the public sector. Her prior business experience and her understanding of the way that the public sector functions inform her approach to climate change and energy and social sustainability policy and engagement at IEMA. She is a Trustee on the board of Uttlesford Citizens Advice and a District Councillor and is active in her community. In her spare time she enjoys live music and cooking for family and friends.