Understanding the events of the conference, which has been the focus of the world’s media for the past few weeks, can feel like tuning in to series 29 of the world’s most complex soap opera. To help you catch-up, here we consider what has (and hasn’t) been achieved, and how our students at Sheffield Hallam are training to join the green workforce.
COP* meetings are organised every year for nations to assess their progress in tackling the climate crisis, and to negotiate future international action. As you might imagine, meetings of this magnitude are unwieldy (the first day of COP29 was dominated by a protracted negotiation of the agenda). However, they provide a crucial forum that allows for international-level agreement.
Previous COPs have varied in success; from COP15 in Copenhagen, which failed to establish binding emissions goals, to COP21 in Paris, which finally resulted in an agreement to limit warming to “well below” 2 °C. However, agreement is very different from implementation.
This year’s COP, hosted by Azerbaijan, was dubbed the “finance COP”, with a focus on the financial support required for the coming energy transition. The argument for this financing is twofold. A moral argument, that high income countries who make the dominant contribution to global emissions should bear the brunt of climate change costs. And a pragmatic argument, that without financial assistance lower income countries will be unable to initiate the energy transitions needed, or to mitigate against climate change-related hazards, to which they are disproportionately exposed.
At COP29 lower income countries pushed for $1.3tr in financial support. The final commitment falls well short at $300bn a year. There is an aim to increase this to the full $1.3tr by 2035, supplemented by private investment. This is a disappointing outcome for lower income countries (and for those wishing for an effective and just climate transition), but there is some relief that a deal was struck at all; there was no agreement in sight until long past the deadline. COP29 has succeeded in a manner very similar to previous COPs; more a deferral of failure than a clear move towards success.
The past fortnight highlights a critical global need for graduates who can work across climate and sustainably disciplines. Graduates who can draw on science to confidently communicate the multidisciplinary complexities of the climate crisis. Graduates who can translate expert knowledge across sectors and disciplines. Graduates who can take on global challenges and develop solutions.
Here at Hallam, we are dedicated to creating these graduates, with teaching on sustainability issues embedded within a range of our degrees in our new Institute of Social Sciences, the first of its kind in the UK. An excellent example of this is our brand-new BSc in Climate, Sustainability and Environmental Management. On this course, first-year students have just completed an assignment addressing a series of common climate misconceptions, using their specialist knowledge to mythbust and communicate with a non-specialist audience. They were wrapping up their submissions just as COP29 was getting underway, and some remarkable similarities between their responses and the conversations in Baku have emerged.
Most notably, the misconception that “the cost of limiting climate change will far exceed the cost of adaptation” was robustly tackled by our students. In many sectors, across many countries, greener is now also cheaper; wind and solar energy now represent the cheapest method of energy production. Our students correctly identified the comparative costs of adaptation (such as building large-scale flood defences) as staggeringly high. Additional to this, the cost of recovery from extreme weather events, crop failures, and the displacement of millions of people is not the cheaper option, and it never has been.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband argued at COP29 that the cost benefits make the renewable energy transition “unstoppable”, regardless of any individual country’s political choices. Of course, the cost of transition is an enormous initial outlay, prohibitively expensive for the lowest income countries despite long-term savings. Forcing lower income countries to shoulder this cost would be deeply inequitable, hence the need for a finance deal to facilitate a just transition.
There were also parallels between discussions at COP29 and the misconception tackled by our students that “doing anything is pointless when China is doing nothing to tackle climate change”. Our students identified that it is not true that China is “doing nothing”. It is looking increasingly likely that Chinese emissions, which peaked in 2023, will actually fall in 2024. China installed more solar capacity in 2023 alone than the USA ever has.
The role of China and other BRIC** nations in the fight against climate change was a focus of discussions at COP29. The list of states that have a financial responsibility to tackle climate change was established in a 1992 UN Convention, and at that time China was not included on this list. However, a lot has changed in 32-years, particularly in the Chinese economy. But at COP29 China remained steadfast in its opposition to compulsory financial contributions, instead promoting voluntary aid worth $25bn. With the political uncertainty caused by Trump’s election and his commitment to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the missed opportunity for China to establish itself as a global climate leader may be an as-yet underestimated outcome of COP29.
As diplomats leave Baku, there’s plenty to feel despondent about. However, it is possible to have reached the end of last week with a renewed sense of determination and hope. Determination to continue to provide a joined-up view of the climate crisis through our teaching at Sheffield Hallam University. And hope, from the articulate, well-informed conversations of our new BSc Climate Sustainability and Environmental Management students.
COP is not a perfect institution, far from it, but it’s currently the only global forum to tackle the climate crisis. We need continued engagement with that forum, and with these critical issues. Here at Sheffield Hallam, we are training students to do just that.
* COP stands for 'Conference of the Parties' and is attended by countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
** BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.
