COP29 Host Reveals Climate Funding and Energy Storage Goals

On Tuesday, Azerbaijan, which will host the COP29 climate summit, unveiled a dozen initiatives it hopes to achieve at the November meeting, including funds to help developed countries lower emissions and fight climate change and a significant boost to energy storage globally.

The Azerbaijani COP29 Presidency sent a letter to all parties, outlining the ‘Action Agenda’ for the upcoming climate summit.

One of the outcomes the Presidency looks to achieve is to broker a deal on a Climate Finance Action Fund (CFAF). This fund would be made of voluntary contributions from fossil fuel-producing countries and companies and will be aimed at catalyzing the public and private sectors across mitigation, adaptation, and research and development.

“The Fund will also have special facilities for highly concessional and grant-based funding to rapidly address the consequences of natural disasters in the developing countries in need,” the presidency said.

On energy storage, COP29 will aim to have parties pledge a target to boost global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels, reaching 1,500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. To enhance energy grids, endorsers are also expected to commit to considerably scaling up investments in grids as part of global efforts to add or refurbish more than 80 million kilometers (49.7 million miles) by 2040.

The previous climate summit, COP28 in Dubai, which ran one day into extra time amid heated debates on the future of fossil fuel use and production, ended with a compromise text referencing for the first time a call to all parties to transition away from fossil fuels.

But the final agreement was watered down compared to any references to phasing out or phasing down of fossil fuels, as objections from many oil exporting countries – led by Saudi Arabia – held back talks in the final days and sent the conference into overtime.

Ahead of the summit this year, several major oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, are pushing back against talks on an agreement to mitigate the use of fossil fuels, negotiators from Western countries told the Financial Times last week.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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