COP29 at a glance: The day COP stood still

Today, headlines on COP centred around the climate finance talks, particularly the lack of progress towards agreement – the words ‘impasse,’ ‘stuck’, ‘stalemate’ and ‘high emotion’ were used to describe the situation. 

Delegates are desperately trying to reach a funding agreement to help poorer countries deal with climate change (the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)), a key objective of this year’s so-called ‘finance COP’.  But there are few signs that any steps towards this have been made, with no country committing any funds so far. 

From outside the negotiation rooms, it certainly appears that COP talks are running in circles. An agreement is supposed to be reached by Friday, and while it is part of the course for COP discussions to run over into the weekend, this year’s talk’s feel further behind than usual.

The complexities of helping the world’s poorest countries are vast. Also on the discussion table today was Afghanistan - a country that is already feeling the impact of climate change acutely, but where there is the challenge of ensuring funds reach the people and stay out of the Taliban's hands. Today, the UN highlighted that no UN funds have reached Afghanistan since the Taliban took control in 2021, but it wants to unlock project financing to support climate resilience. 

Beyond the negotiation rooms it was a day focused on urbanisation, transport and tourism, but these topics garnered relatively little attention outside. This is the first time tourism featured as a thematic day, which is important as tourism is a dominant industry for many developing countries that are also the most affected by climate change. It is also a key contributor to emissions via flights. But last week’s approval of the carbon market framework (Article 6) is a significant development for the industry, meaning tourism companies can purchase carbon credits to offset emissions.

Tomorrow will be focused on Nature and Biodiversity, Indigenous People, Gender Equality, Oceans, and Coastal Zones, but the big question will be if there’s been any movement on the elusive NCQG negotiations.