We’ve confidence in Azerbaijan hosting COP29 – Belgian diplomat, Lenaerts

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, will become the world centre of climate policy November 2024 by hosting the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29). The decision to hold a climate conference for the first time in a South Caucasus country was made at the COP28 plenary meeting held in Dubai on December 11, 2023. Baku is expected to receive about 70,000-80,000 foreign guests as part of the event.

In an interview with Report, Ulrik Lenaerts, Deputy Director for Environment and Climate Policy and Cooperation of the Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of Belgium, spoke about the importance of COP sessions in the fight against climate change, emphasised the main tasks that should be paid attention to when preparing for COP29, underlined the possibility of establishing cooperation between Belgium and Azerbaijan in this direction and much more.

Ulrik Lenaerts, Deputy Director for Environment and Climate Policy and Cooperation of the Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of Belgium

How would you characterise the importance of these sessions as a man who has been taking part in the COP sessions for many years?

The Paris Agreement works with the five-year ambition cycle and also has defined clear goals on the temperature goals, not tackling climate change. So, the temperature stays far below two degrees and possibly 1.5 degrees.

The annual COP meetings are that once-in-a-year opportunity to bring everyone together in bringing those goals closer. COP meetings are very unique, and you won’t find something similar in other policy areas.

Firstly, you have the actual negotiations between governments for an agreed global consensus on how to move forward with the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Next, you have the climate action agenda, that is the different stakeholders, trade unions, businesses, youth and others that showcase certain initiatives that present targets from their side, and that very often interrelates with the issues that are under negotiation. So, they create a kind of a further expectation on what that negotiated outcome needs to look like.

And thirdly, a COP is a kind of global gathering where all the actors active on climate have this convening space.

Because of the fact that energy transition and also adaptation involve so many different actors, these actors became very eager to join COP meetings, to have COP meetings as a meeting point, to share their experience, their know-how and to build partnerships with others, also putting pressure on negotiations. And that makes the COP meetings so special.

What are your expectations from hosting a climate conference here in Baku? What issues will be on the agenda of COP29?

COP in Baku is facing very much a challenge of taking forward what we agreed in Dubai when there was a political finalisation of that five-year ambition cycle.

It was prepared for two years with a lot of scientific reports, with a lot of technical negotiations, and it resulted in clear guidance for the new NDCs. These are the national climate goals that have to be introduced in the latest by the beginning of 2025.

And it’s very important that in that respect, COP29 is that enabling COP that really strengthens international cooperation on developing those national goals.

It’s common knowledge that climate funding will become the main topic at COP29. What can you say about that?

There’s a high-level expert panel on finance that also has been created to support the preparations for the new finance goal.

But what this analysis shows is that the amount of finance and investments that you need for the ambitious and diseased energy transition and adaptation is in a magnitude of trillions annually.

What is very important, I think, for everyone in the preparatory discussions it was obvious that all countries want to see a goal that lives up to that challenge that responds to actually what is needed to achieve the goals.

A large proportion of climate finance comes from domestic national resources. And there it’s very important that the enabling environments are encouraging, attracting climate investments. You can do so by setting clear goals on where you want to go on renewables, on energy efficiency.

You can also do so by introducing cap and trade or carbon pricing instruments. There are lots of ways to do so, but it’s very important that you have a framework at the national level that is supportive of investments for climate.

If you look, for instance, at the numbers from the International Energy Agency, their analysis shows that 87% of the newly installed capacity in 2023 was renewable energy. So, a lot of the international energy investments at present and in the near future are in the areas of energy efficiency and renewables.

Unfortunately, what you also see in the analysis of the International Energy Agency and IRENA – International Institute on Renewables, is that you have a very uneven spread of the investments on renewables and also on energy efficiency. What they show is that you have a concentration of investments in developed countries, also in China. And that to some part has to do with the high costs of investments in those countries, where it’s certainly important that the COP also encourages for more risk appetite by the international actors, while also minimising that risk by having nationally the enabling environments that can attract the finance.

How can Azerbaijan and Belgium cooperate in implementing climate change initiatives?

Belgium has a rather small territory in the North Sea, but with the investments that have been made in the North Sea and the additional investments that we expect, and we have been in close cooperation with all the actors in renewable energy and particularly offshore wind and green hydrogen, we will be able to generate the amount of offshore wind energy that equals the total household energy consumption from Belgium by 2030.

And I’m mentioning this because you, and this region is certainly considering and has embarked on similar regional energy cooperation initiatives. So, I think it’s certainly interesting to really share notes on how countries pursue that kind of regional integration of networks. It’s a very challenging.

And, for instance, within the North Sea, it’s not just about identifying zones where you will have offshore production, attracting investors, but also creating an energy island that would work as a kind of buffer when you have overproduction of energy at some point, and then you can use it at moments that you have lesser production. But it’s also setting up the transmission networks and the connection to the continent and so forth.

It involves a lot of expertise and bringing a lot of actors together. I think that is certainly an area where both Azerbaijan and Belgium, as a North Sea country, can have areas to cooperate and exchange ideas.

How can you assess the work done by the COP29 team and preparations for this large-scale event?

Those exchanges were very positive. Since we have the EU presidency during this semester, one of the first things that we decided, was coming to Baku and to connect with the COP29 team. We were impressed by the state of the preparation, also because it was very short after the actual decision on the host for COP29 was passed. That was in December. And we came at the end of February, beginning of March.

And everyone we spoke was perfectly aware of the topics, the challenges, what the role of the COP presidency is. So, we have a lot of confidence in Azerbaijan for hosting and presiding the COP.

We hope to have the result on climate finance, cooperation on NDCs and there are other deliverables that we are looking at. For instance, we hope to get a result on the market mechanism in a way that supports climate ambition. There’s a review of the gender action plan. We hope that that will be concluded.