COP29: Did ‘pledge fatigue’ hinder progress on grids and energy storage?

The COP29 summit closed amid acrimony over climate finance but a pledge to ramp up global grid and energy storage capacity gained momentum with dozens of signatories – although “fatigue” for entering such pacts may have hindered wider support.

Finance was the focus of this year’s annual COP climate summit in Azerbaijan and headlines have been dominated by wrangling over how much rich countries should pay to support developing nations that often bear the brunt of the climate crisis.

After bitter recriminations and walkouts during the negotiations, which ran a day over schedule, rich countries agreed to triple financing to developing countries to $300bn by 2035. That is a big increase on $100bn today, but miles short of the $1.3tn developing countries were pushing for.

An agreement was reached to work together to scale up finance to developing countries to $1.3tn per year by 2035, but this will come from private as well as public sources and details remain vague.

“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work to do,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of UN Climate Change.

That may be putting it mildly. Climate Action Network branded it a “betrayal in Baku,” with the organisation’s executive director Tasneem Essop describing it as the “most horrendous climate negotiations in years due to the bad faith of developed countries.”

“This was meant to be the finance COP, but the Global North turned up with a plan to betray the Global South. In the end, we saw the same story play out, with developing countries being left little choice but to accept a bad deal.”

Campaigners criticised the emphasis instead on loans – rather than the grants they had wanted – that could add to the debt burdens of developing nations, as well as what they saw as various “loopholes” in the text that could see rich countries evade their obligations.

“This agreement offers a glimmer of hope but is just a foundation. Without immediate and bold actions to implement these commitments and get the finance flowing to developing countries the potential for renewables will remain underutilised.”

‘Targets are not turbines, pledges are not pylons’

The COP29 Presidency in Baku had hoped to support that global goal through the adoption of another, the Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge.

This pledge is to raise global energy storage capacity to 1.5TW by 2030 – some six times higher than it was in 2022 – and to scale up investments in grids so as to add or refurbish more than 80 million kilometres by 2040.

“COP29 provided a perfect platform to build momentum for the pledge,” said Douglas, highlighting commitment from Uruguay, Belgium and the UK that signalled “leadership on this front.”

The UK and other G7 nations had already signed up to the goals of the pledge earlier this year and it is unclear exactly how many new major supporters the pledge won at COP29, although it is understood there are now dozens of signatories in total.

Douglas said that the COP29 Presidency proposed the pledge to “raise awareness” of the issue and, “unlike the tripling renewables target, there was no intention to include the targets in an official COP decision text. This is really the start of the process, and maybe next year we can revisit the possibility of a formal agreement at COP30 in Brazil.”

Putting the pledge on the “global radar” is a “win in itself," although he added there is “definitely some ‘pledge fatigue’ from all parties.” said Douglas. “As we often say, ‘targets are not turbines,’ or now we could say ‘pledges are not pylons.’”

The COP29 Presidency had pushed for the adoption of nine pledges and declarations at the summit in areas including hydrogen, methane and green energy zones.

“It successfully put the importance of storage and grids on the global radar, raising awareness of the need for the flexibility that the massive increases in renewable energy need to keep the lights on across the world.

“Storage targets are good, and it was encouraging to see storage on the agenda for COP for the first time, but these global targets need to be urgently translated into national plans and local projects to keep the global tripling of renewables goal within reach.”

Carbon trading scheme agreed – but could it create ‘cowboy markets’?

One bright spot for many from this year’s summit was an agreement being reached on international carbon market standards.

This will govern how countries can create and trade emission reductions and removals as carbon credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

"We have unlocked one of the most complex and technical challenges in climate diplomacy," said COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev.

"Article 6 is hard to understand, but its impacts will be clear in our everyday lives. It means coal plants decommissioned, wind farms built and forests planted. It means a new wave of investment in the developing world."

This was generally celebrated, although not everyone was convinced about the new agreement. Non-profit climate policy organisation Carbon Market Watch said the deal "risks facilitating cowboy carbon markets at a time when the world needs a sheriff."

"It seems countries were more willing to adopt insufficient rules and deal with the consequences later, rather than prevent those consequences in the first place," said Carbon Market Watch policy expert Isa Mulder.

Attention now turns to emissions reduction targets

Whatever the shortcomings of COP29, Douglas said that political leaders still have a “huge opportunity to drive investment and accelerate the clean energy transition over the next 12 months.”

This will come through setting specific and actionable renewable energy legislation in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – documents that set out the ambitions of countries in their decarbonisation pathways under the Paris Agreement.

The new NDCs must be “ambitious” by aligning with a pathway to limiting global warming to 1.5C, said Douglas. They must also be “specific” by including “quantifiable, renewable energy capacity targets for 2030 and 2035.”

Finally, they must be “actionable: underpinned by robust energy, resource and investment plans and legislation that provide certainty to the industry and finance sector.”

“Setting renewable energy targets in NDCs and integrated energy plans, aligned with broader emission reduction goals, can help close the ambition gap and chart a clear path to tripling renewable energy capacity, alongside the transition away from fossil fuels.”