The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) which closed on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, in Dubai inaugurates a new era for humankind. In November of the year 2024, the United Nations will hold COP 29. One eloquent statement demonstrating its success is what UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in his final speech. “Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.” The uniqueness of COP 28 is that the technical and scientific discussions evolved quickly into a high-level negotiation over the main political topics and subjects.
Much success has happened at COP 28. It manifests the era of global solidarity in fighting the bad effects of climate change. It will be the commencement of how to end dependence on fossil fuels. It will prepare COP 29 to be the first review of ‘global stocktake.’ It will be like the Paris Agreement goals, a reference to a historic agreement that humankind must fulfill. It will equip COP 29 with the mechanism and the tools to review the financial pledges and how much money has arrived in real life after many nations promised to commit decent amounts of money in Dubai to help save the environment. Encouraged by the strong results of COP 28, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) unveiled its strategy for the future of agriculture in a 1.5C world.
COP 28 will be very much in the picture as two coming UN-sponsored environmental conferences take place in March and April of 2024. They are the Annual Adaptation Forum 2024 by the Adaptation Committee (A UNFCCC event in March to be held in Germany.) It will be part of the discussions of the Adaptation & Loss and Damage Fund which was rescued by COP 28, and thankfully through the personal effort and mediation of COP 28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber. The second conference will be in April and will be held in Germany. It will be the 11th meeting of the Committee to facilitate the implementation and to promote compliance referred to in Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement (PAICC 11.) Again, the COP 28 agenda and resolutions will dominate the discussions of these two preparatory conferences.
Surprisingly, the world seemed to be confused over who would host COP 29. The Czech Republic made it known that it was thinking about entering a bid to host the conference. Bulgaria also announced its hope to host COP 29. Azerbaijan and Armenia also expressed their desire to host the conference in 2024. Azerbaijan has been chosen as the host of next year’s climate summit after tough talks. Under UN traditions, it was the turn of a country from East Europe to chair the conference. However, Russia had vetoed any country from the European Union to host the conference. Even to the present, Azerbaijan and Armenia are trying to undermine each other by hosting such an important summit because of the war they are fighting between the two of them. If it is eventually Azerbaijan with no plan changes, the Azerbaijani Government must study the way Dubai structured and runs COP 28. They will learn many valuable lessons. Since Brazil is a strong candidate to host COP 30, the Government of President Lula da Silva has to discuss with the Government of the Emirates how to organize an impactful global environment conference.
There was no uncertainty as to who would host COP 28. Everyone trusted Dubai. Every nation had confidence in the United Arab Emirates. COP 28 will influence COP 29. As Kaveh Guilanpour, the Vice-President of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions stated, “It means that plans can now be made coming out of Cop28, for the key years of 2024 and 2025 when new climate targets have to be tabled by all countries.”
Finally, if there is a disagreement among nations on Azerbaijan as the host of COP 29, I strongly recommend that Dubai host COP 29. It epitomizes one simple thing which is the ability of Dubai to serve humanity year after year.
