Fossil of the Day awards at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan

The Fossil of the day Daily count for COP29. The best of the worst....

Day	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Dishonourable Mention	Solidarity Award
Nov15	G7: United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom
Nov 16	Italy
Nov 18	South Korea			Finland	Palestinian People
Nov 19	Russia			Costa Rica
Nov 20	Europe			Switzerland	Ukraine
Nov 21
Nov 22
Colossal Fossil

The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), nominate and vote for countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in the negotiations in the talks, or in a wider context for actions in their own country at odds with implementing climate action n alignment with the Paris Agreement and its targets..

Below are the CAN International Medias Releases for all the Fossil Awards, available

Chris Bowen delivers Australia's national climate statement at COP29 in Baku

Australia's Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen delivered Australia's national climate statement to COP29 in the High Level Segment Plenary (Resumed).

Not a bad statement on some of the changes being made in energy transition and economic transition associated with decarbonisation by Australia, but it is in what was not said that is important. 

• The continued approval of new coal and gas projects primarily for the export market. Scope 3 emissions are not included in Australia's greenhouse gas inventory
• The Safeguard Mechanism to reduce emissions of the largest polluters is built upon carbon offsets, which have integrity issues.
• Australia's carbon accounting is highly reliant on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) which indicates that there has been minimal reductions in many sectors other than the electricity sector. 
• Australia has not addressed Fossil Fuel Tax subsidies currently running at about $14 billion per year
• Australia signed the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) at COP28 and had a year to implement its commitment. This partnership was established in Glasgow at COP26. CETP pledges cover Development Finance institutions and export credit agencies. Australia must unveil its CETP implementation plan (Jubilee Australia)

Don't get me wrong. Setting a 2030 target of 43 percent reduction on 2005 levels was important, as was the target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030. The Made in Australia program and funding is as important as the Inflation Reduction Act in the US for unlocking economic decarbonistion and transformation.

Australia is increasing climate finance, but at a trickle and very far from our fair share as a developed country. In this speech Bowen announced a much welcomed $50 million to the Loss and Damage Fund. And most of Australia's climate finance is in the form of grant funding which is the most effective and doesn't burden developing nations feeling the impact of climate change with more debt. 

The Action Aid report Seizing the Moment: A new Climate Finance Goal that delivers for the Pacific communicates civil society’s expectations of the Australian and New Zealand Governments when negotiating the new global climate finance goal at the UN Climate Conference in November 2024.  "Australia and New Zealand’s climate finance contributions are falling short of need. Australia’s commitment to provide AUD 3 billion over 2020-2025 is well short of its estimated fair share of the USD 100 billion goal, which is AUD 4 billion per year. Both countries have redirected substantial portions of their climate finance from existing aid budgets, undermining climate and development action across the region." (Action Aid)

And don't get me started on the fantasy nuclear plan by Peter Dutton and the Liberal and National Parties. This would come at huge public expense, and increase in electricity costs, a huge delay of 15-20 years, and would require coal and gas continue in the grid well past 2050. It is not a solution but a distraction and a delay. Bowen understands Nuclear should have no role in Australia.

Chris Bowen as the co-chair with Egypt of finance discussions will be very busy in the final days of COP trying to broker a deal on the new climate finance target and the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) (See this explainer)

Tracking Australian Ministers and Australian pledges at COP29

Chris Bowen at COP29 Photo: Scott Hamilton

This is a subpage of Australia at COP29 Climate Diary and will be updated throughout the conference.

Australia will be represented at the ministerial level at COP29 by Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

This year a key focus of the UN Climate Conference is Climate Finance, and development of The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). 

| Pledges | Chris Bowen |

Australia at COP29 Climate Diary

The UN climate conference, the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP28) is ocurring in Baku in the Azerbaijan from Monday November 11 to Friday November 22, 2024 (but may also go into overtime). 

This is my digital diary of Australia at COP29 in Baku. I will be following whats going on at in Baku online. Follow with me. I'll be updating this blog post regularly up to the end of November 2024. 

President-Designate for COP 29 is Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. Azerbaijan is a repressive state with a poor human rights record according to Human Rights Watch in leadup to a meeting in Bonn in June.

Australia is represented at the ministerial level by Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. See Tracking Australian Ministers and Australian pledges at COP29. Australia is lobbying to hold COP31 in 2026, and an announcement of host is likely in Baku. The city of Belem in Brazil is holding COP30 in 2025.

I'll be including detail from IISD Earth Negotiating Bulletin for each day. I might pluck details from the full report, especially relevant to Australia, and will post the 'In the Corridors" section which provides a concise  'vibe' summary on the negotiations. I might include details from other sources as needed.

Links: UNFCCC COP29 website for documents | Azerbaijan COP29 website | COP29 Climate Justice Coalition | DCCEEW: COP29 Australia Pavillion | Carbon Brief: Who Wants What, Negotiating Text Tracker | Fossil of the Day awards  | 

20 November 2024 - NCQG Climate Finance target: $1.3tn, $900bn, $600bn, $440bn, $100bn - all are numbers proposed by countries for the climate finance goal that COP29 must agree, reports Australian climate minister Chris Bowen (Guardian Live)

The Guardian's Live blog summation of COP29 main events for the day:

• Argentina’s foreign minister said the country will stay in the Paris agreement, after negotiators representing the government of climate science denier Javier Milei were ordered to withdraw last week.
• The head of OPEC echoed the Azerbaijani President’s comments in praise of oil and gas – “They are indeed a gift of God.”
• The Maldives urged countries to keep pushing for 1.5C even as some experts dismissed the target – “We must, must try.”
• Money is the key question at this Cop, but no country has so far put any on the table, my colleague Fiona Harvey explained in a breakdown of what’s at stake.
• Developing countries responded with ridicule to a climate finance target in the $200-300bn range that had reportedly been proposed by the EU – “Is that a joke?”
• “We’re reaching a point of real emotion here,” campaigners warned.

20 November 2024 - New report argues dramatically reducing Australia’s use of gas would secure the future of industrial manufacturing and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers. (Lock the Gate) Turning Down the Gas report finds at least 90% of industrial gas use can already be electrified or regassed with green hydrogen, and technology solutions are rapidly being developed for the remaining 10%. Key findings:

• The three LNG terminals on Curtis Island near Gladstone make up 30 percent of East Coast industrial gas demand. Restricting the sale of uncontracted gas for export would address short term shortage concerns, while the electrification or phase down of two of the three East Coast LNG facilities by 2035 would reduce domestic gas demand by 79 PJ. 
• Replacing gas use in manufacturing with electricity using technology that is commercially available today would reduce demand by 112 PJ by 2035.
• Doing the same in commercial buildings would reduce gas demand by 25 PJ by 2035.
• “Regassing” and substituting metals smelting and refining, iron and steel manufacturing, and chemical manufacturing with green hydrogen would cut gas use by 62 PJ by 2035.
• Targeted government support including more research could help truly “hard to abate” sectors like cement and glass manufacturing wean themselves off fossil gas by 8 PJ by 2035.

20 November 2024 - Chris Bowen delivers Australia's national climate statement at COP29 in Baku. This includes an announcement of $50 million to the Loss and Damage Fund. (Climate Citizen)

19 November 2024 - UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell urges COP29 to agree on new climate finance target in response to the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration on Tuesday 19 November 2024. "G20 Leaders have sent a clear message to their negotiators at COP29: do not leave Baku without a successful new finance goal. This is in every country’s clear interests." (UNFCCC News)

19 November 2024 - Australia declines to join UK and US-led nuclear energy development pact (ABC News | Guardian) See more at Tracking Australian Ministers and Australian pledges at COP29.

19 November 2024 - Countries could use nature to ‘cheat’ on net zero targets, scientists warn (Guardian) By relying on natural carbon sinks such as forests and peatlands to offset emissions, governments can appear closer to goals than they actually are. (Study) Australia is a fine example of doing this, relying on LULUCF and carbon offsets with querstionable integrity.

18 November 2024 - Study: Quantifying international public finance provision needs for the new UN climate finance goal (Nature Climate Action) estimates $1-15tn are needed in grant equivalent funding.

18 November 2024 - Vanuatu and Tuvalu call on Australia to stop approving new fossil fuel developments at COP29, Australia accused of ‘exporting climate destruction’ on tiny Pacific neighbours with massive gas expansion plans. Labor government ‘not acting in good faith’ when it stands on global stage and promotes its climate credentials, special envoy at Cop29 says (Guardian) 

18 November 2024 - Greens drop climate trigger demand in attempt to restart Nature Positive talks with Labor (Guardian)

18 November 2024 - Climate crisis to blame for dozens of ‘impossible’ heatwaves, studies reveal. (Guardian) Stark evidence of how global heating is already supercharging deadly weather beyond anything ever experienced by humanity

17 November 2024 - UN warns of ‘economic carnage’ if G20 leaders cannot agree on climate finance for poor countries (Guardian)

16 November 2024 - Almost 500 carbon capture lobbyists granted access to Cop29 climate summit (Guardian) (CIEL) Also  Over 1,700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists granted access to Cop29, says report (Guardian)

16 November 2024 - Fossil fuel bosses get ‘red carpet’ at Cop29 despite concerns over influence (Guardian)

16 November 2024 - Argentina: Fears grow that Milei will withdraw Argentina from Paris climate accord (Guardian) This follows a report 14 Nov that Argentina withdraws negotiators from Cop29 summit (Guardian)

16 November 2024 - China faces crucial decisions on climate policy during second Trump term (Guardian)

15 November 2024 - Civil Society Organizations at COP29 call on Australia, Japan, and South Korea to Stop Their Fossil Fuel Cooperation (Fossil Free Japan)

"South Korea and Japan are the second and third largest providers of public finance for fossil fuels, having spent approximately USD 10 billion and 7 billion respectively on new oil, gas, and coal projects each year on average from 2020 to 2022. The countries continue to channel billions into fossil fuel projects abroad, supporting fossil gas extraction projects in Australia, such as the Barossa and Scarborough gas carbon bombs, and Mozambique, such as the Mozambique LNG project.

"Despite an expected LNG glut and projections from the International Energy Agency that demand for LNG will drastically drop in the following decades as countries uphold their climate commitments, both Japan and South Korea have been justifying their dirty investment activities under the guise of energy security. Yet recent explosive research has found that Japan, already facing declining domestic demand, has been on-selling imported fossil gas to other countries, particularly in Southeast Asia.

"To sustain its reselling activities, Japan has invested heavily in manufacturing demand for fossil gas in South and Southeast Asia by sinking investments into import infrastructure; providing ‘technical support’ to the drafting of energy policies; and pushing technologies that prolong the lifespan of these gas projects."

Erin Ryan, Senior International Campaigner, Solutions for Climate Australia said:

“First Nations Australians have been custodians of their country for millennia, and have been defending it from destructive fossil gas extraction for decades. Yet, fuelled by finance and faux demand from Japan and South Korea, Australia continues to expand and export polluting fossil gas to Asia. This trilateral cooperation serves corporations over communities, and is derailing the energy transition in our region. It’s well past time for these players to shift from gas to green exports, and say sayonara to fossil fuels.”

13 November 2024 - This year has been masterclass in human destruction, UN chief tells Cop29 (Guardian) COP29 UN Secretary-General António Guterres Calls for emergency emmissions reduction, climate adaptation and more climate finance (Climate Citizen)

12 November 2024 Guardian Live Blog Day 1; Carbon credit trade rules approved, breaking lengthy deadlock. Critics say approval of ‘climate credits’ rules on day one of Cop29 was rushed (Guardian) "This has resulted in risky rules that will lead to human rights violations and environmental harm" (CIEL). Also UK announces a 2035 pledge of 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, (Guardian) Greta Thunberg on COP29: Greenwashing Azerbaijan's Extreme Human Rights Abuses and Ethnic Cleansing (Youtube)

11 November 2024 - WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update for COP29 (WMO) WMO issues "Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 will be the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world. The January – September 2024 global mean surface air temperature was 1.54 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.13°C) above the pre-industrial average, boosted by a warming El Niño event, according to an analysis of six international datasets used by WMO."

COP29 UN Secretary-General António Guterres Calls for emergency emmissions reduction, climate adaptation and more climate finance

In his opening speech to UN Climate Conference COP29 Antonio Guterres called for focus on three priorities.

• Emergency emissions reductions, including submitting new national climate plans
• Countries must do more to protect your people from the ravages of the climate crisis.
• Address the priority of climate finance

Here is is speech:

Second Trump Presidency of climate denial will challenge global climate action response

Donald Trump has won the US presidency for a second non-consecutive term. Plus Republicans have also won control of the Senate. Counting is still under way for the House of Representatives but it is likely the Republicans may have a majority.  The Supreme Court has a 6:3 conservative majority. With few checks and balances a Trump administration will have free reign. 

Is this bad? Yes. According to the Guardian, "The impact of Donald Trump enacting the climate policies of the rightwing Project 2025 would result in billions of tonnes of extra carbon pollution, wrecking the US’s climate targets, as well as wiping out clean energy investments and more than a million jobs, a new analysis finds."

Read more: Berkeley Law have published A Guide to the Major Climate and Environmental Excerpts in the Project 2025 Report. 

Montreal Protocol continues to deliver on ozone reduction and climate

Source IISD/ENB 28 Oct 2024

A very detailed summary account on the international meeting addressing Ozone Depleting substances with the Vienna Convention, and Montreal Protocol. This is unlikely to make mainstream news, but provides important climate outcomes, and demonstrates the international treaty system when it is operating effectively. This is the little climate treaty that keeps on mostly delivering outcomes.

Thanks to the IISD/Earth Negotiations Bulletin who report on all the international negotiations, providing transparency.

The 13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (COP13) and 36th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (MOP36) ocurred 27 October – 1 November 2024 in Bangkok.

"Despite a few small setbacks and some late nights, delegates agreed that COP13/MOP36 was a resounding success. Parties managed to address a record number of agenda items in the most contact groups ever established, and adopted important decisions to keep the Convention and Protocol strong and successful.

Australia at Biological Diversity COP16 in Columbia

UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP16 meets from October 20 - 27 in Cali, Columbia. This is a Live article actively updated during October.

Participants will review the state of implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, including through alignment with national biodiversity strategies and action plans as well as resource mobilization. At the previous summit, COP15, which was held in Montreal in December 2022, countries agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The GBF is a set of four goals to 2050 and 23 targets to 2030 with the overarching mission of reversing the decline of biodiversity around the world by 2030. (Read the goals and targets here: The Montreal Moment for Biodiversity: Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted)

Australia submitted its 6th national report to the CBD in 2020, and is due this year to submit a new national report.

COP16 Meeting documents | Carbon Brief INtereactive: who wants what | DCCEEW on CBD
CBD Youtube | CBD-Live Youtube |  IISD Earth Negotiation Bulletin on COP16

State of Australian Climate 2024 paints a worsening picture: 13 graphs and maps

 

Australia's climate is worsening, driven by accelerating climate change, according to the latest assessment by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. 

Buckle up people. Expect longer, more intense extreme heat events. Heat events kill more people than all other extreme weather events combined. 

Australia has now warmed by 1.51 degrees Centigrade.

South West Australia and South East Australia will get drier. But when it rains, heavy short term rain events are becoming more intense. That means more flash flooding. It also has iimplications for agriculture.

The hotter, drier climate means longer fire season, a more extreme fire season. We are seeing more pyrocumulonimbus (Pyro CB) fires when a bushfire starts generating its own weather firestorm. Larger fires mean more smoke that can travel for hundreds even thousands of kilometres with the air pollution particulates affecting people in distant towns and cities. More people are dying from smoke related conditions.

CHOGM meeting in Samoa: new report highlights Australia, Canada, UK role in fossil fuel emissions

This page discusses CHOGM 2024 and climate change and the outcomes.

A New report launched at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa reveals the stark imbalance in fossil fuel extraction across the Commonwealth and highlights the dominance of three wealthy nations—Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom—in driving fossil fuel expansion and emissions. 

The report Uncommon Wealth: Fossil Fuel Expansion in the Commonwealth Dominated by Three Wealthy Countries - was commissioned by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative and based on data from the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels. 

It shows that despite representing only 6% of the Commonwealth’s population, Australia, Canada, and the UK are responsible for over 60% of emissions generated from extraction across Commonwealth countries since 1990.

Outcomes: Samoa Communique | Ocean Declaration | 
King Charles on Climate Action | CANi & PICAN Briefing Note |
Australia: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese | Foreign Minister Penny Wong