BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23. At COP29 in Baku, rich countries, the low-income countries, North, South, should all come together to address the global challenge of climate change, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said in an exclusive interview with TurkicWorld
Key takeaways from previous COP29 dialogues and upcoming meeting in New York
"We had two high-level dialogues on COP29 and there were a few important outcomes of those two meetings. The first one was, in my view, a very high level of participation, both in terms of the countries, but also energy companies and the finance industry. There was a lot of interest on that. Second, the governments are very determined to build upon the COP28 success and it's the COP29. Baku is another success story. There is a lot of willingness there. And the third one is the COP29 team’s and the Azerbaijan government's inclusive approach to bring everybody around the table and to find consensus between the countries are much appreciated," he said.
Birol noted that now the discussion is focusing more and more on the financing issue.
"This will be a key topic. At the same time, the parties that have joined our meetings in Paris and London are looking forward to have some concrete deliverables in terms of the COP29 outcomes," he added.
IEA executive director noted that a huge number of requests are being received to participate in the third one, which is going to take place in September in New York, in the context of the United Nations General Assembly.
"We are now looking for a bigger venue for this meeting as the expectations from COP29 increases day by day. We would like to do two things because September is getting closer to COP29. First, we would like to try to get consensus on the financing issue among the countries and to get both the developed and developing countries together with the meeting which is chaired by the COP29 president-designate, Mukhtar Babayev and myself," he said.
Birol noted that the second target is to get some concrete potential deliverables, such as concrete steps in terms of methane reduction, the global target for battery developments, the global target for electricity grids.
"These are two different avenues. The first one is about trying to get consensus on financing and the second is the building upon the COP28. We are going to discuss what kind of next concrete deliverable targets the world can agree in Baku. Just before that event, the International Energy Agency is going to present a report on what are the implications of the full implementation of the COP28 results and what needs to be done in COP29 to bring those trends in a more sustainable way.
Because as you know, for example, in COP28, there is an agreement on tripling the renewable energy capacity and doubling of the energy efficiency, which we suggested to COP28 presidency. Now we are suggesting to complement this, to make the energy systems secure and reach our climate targets, to determine what kind of additional concrete measures are needed with respect to batteries, grids and others," he added.
Climate financing challenges
Birol believes that climate financing is the nerve center of all the problems.
"Let me give you the context. About $2 trillion are invested in clean energy financing in the entire world this year. This is not good enough, but encouraging. But the problem is that about 85 percent of this $2 trillion is invested in the advanced economies and in China. Only 15 percent is invested in the emerging and developing world where more than two-thirds of the global population lives. So, there is a major problem here. And we have to come up with a creative mechanism where the countries, the parties, do agree in order to make sure that the emerging and developing countries do also receive clean energy financing. Because if we are not able to do that, we have no chance whatsoever to reach our climate targets," said the IEA executive director.
He pointed out that problems cannot be solved only with the increasing climate financing in the advanced economies and in China.
"There is a huge amount of emissions coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and we will not be able to reach our targets. Therefore, for me, this is a critical issue. Both COP29 and COP30 need to focus on financing. I believe that in addition to the COP29 presidency, the G20 presidency of Brazil this year should work in order to get the necessary funds for the emerging and developing countries," he said.
Ways of creating effective control mechanism
"All the ways come to Baku. The countries need to come with a new nationally determined contribution. They should decide on what are they going to do between now and 2035, in the next 10 years? And these plans should be ambitious enough in order to bring the world to a 1.5° trajectory. The discussions in Baku will play a very important role here. That’s why the International Energy Agency has decided to support the COP29 presidency, so that there are meaningful discussions among the parties to come up with ambitious, nationally determined contribution plans.
If they are not ambitious enough, if it doesn't bring us the 1.5° target, it is not a good outcome. So therefore, the COP29 presidency needs to encourage all the parties to have ambitious nationally determined contribution plans for the next 10 years. All the countries and the IEA will be fully supporting the COP29 presidency here," said Birol.
The IEA executive director noted that at COP29, he would like to see that the rich countries, the low-income countries, North, South, all come together to address this global challenge.
"It's a challenge not only for the rich, it's not only a challenge for the poor, not for North, not for South, for all the countries. If we are able to leave the geopolitical fracturing around the world now, put aside geopolitical divisions, and focus on a global challenge for everybody, and take some concrete decisions and agree some concrete targets, it will be a very successful meeting, and the Baku COP29 will be remembered as a successful milestone in reaching this global target," he concluded.
