COP29: Leaders must commit to fair climate financing and fully phasing out fossil fuels

Leaders at COP29 must listen to demands for climate justice by putting human rights at the heart of all decision making and commit to massively scaling up needs-based climate financing and a full, fast, fair, and funded phase-out of fossil fuels across all sectors, said Amnesty International ahead of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan.

“The global climate crisis represents the single greatest threat to humanity. The annual emissions report from the UN Environment Programme found that without significant changes, the world is on track for a catastrophic increase of 2.6 to 3.1°C this century. If we do not take bold, decisive and collective action today, tomorrow’s world will be increasingly unlivable. From droughts and wildfires to floods and supercharged storms, these devastating unnatural disasters have become far too often a regular feature of people’s lives the world over. They are bound to increase in scale, reach and intensity, ending far more lives, destroying livelihoods, and fueling unprecedented levels of famine and forced migration. It’s not too late to avert total climate breakdown, but we cannot waste another minute,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“States must build on the COP28 decision and commit to a full, fast, fair and funded fossil fuel phaseout. This will require agreement on a vastly scaled-up climate finance target to help fund just transitions to zero-carbon economies in lower income states – at least one trillion USD per year. The current lack of progress towards agreement on this issue is shocking. One trillion USD may seem expensive, but the human rights and economic costs of maintaining the status quo are incalculable. The fate of humanity depends upon it.

“The high-income countries who share the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis must negotiate in good faith to achieve an ambitious and adequate target and deliver on their commitments. They must also substantially increase financing for adaptation to the significant climate harm that’s already here and will worsen very quickly, and to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage to help the people worst impacted by the effects of global heating.”

If we do not take bold, decisive and collective action today, tomorrow’s world will be increasingly unlivable.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

Azerbaijan will host the 29^th Conference of Parties (COP29) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku from 11 to 22 November. More than 190 parties to the treaty will discuss issues such as a new global goal for climate finance; targets for ending greenhouse gas emissions, particularly through fossil fuel phaseout; just transitions to zero-carbon economies; and how to support measures to reduce climate harms and address unavoidable loss and damage in lower income states that are bearing the brunt of climate harms while having contributed the least to creating them.

Amnesty International will have delegates at COP29 from 9 to 24 November, who will be available for interviews about the need to centre climate-action decisions in human rights, and the Azerbaijani government’s ongoing assault on civil society.

“In light of the inadequate human rights protections in the Host Country Agreement, states must also take steps to protect freedom of expression and peaceful protest for all participants at COP29 and to limit the pernicious influence of fossil fuel lobbyists who will be ubiquitous at COP. Azerbaijan has a terrible track record in terms of respect for freedom of expression and dissent. It is therefore all the more important that these rights are protected in the official UN space. Both the UNFCCC Secretariat and parties must do much more than what they have done in the UAE or Egypt to ensure the safety, security and rights of all,” said Agnès Callamard.

In October 2024, Amnesty International published an advocacy briefing with recommendations for parties to the UNFCCC and to the Paris Agreement. In line with the global climate justice movement, the organization is highlighting the urgent need for massively increased public climate financing that is accessible to those countries and communities in need.

Amnesty International calls on COP29 delegates and the UNFCCC Secretariat to implement these recommendations, which include:

• Put human rights at the heart of all climate action decision making to ensure a rapid, equitable and just transition to zero carbon economies and protect the rights of all to life, health, food, water, sanitation, housing, decent work and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment without discrimination, which are essential to achieving climate justice.

• Massively scale up climate finance, particularly for adaptation and loss and damage, in the form of grants, not loans, with those most responsible for emissions contributing the most.

• Commit to a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phase out across all sectors, without relying on risky and unproven technologies or offsets that do not lead to genuine emissions reductions.

• Develop new, human rights-compliant Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that will keep global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, with high-income historical emitters, other high-emitting G20 countries, and other high-income fossil fuel producers going furthest and fastest.

• Protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly for all participants at COP29 which is held in Azerbaijan, where freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly are severely restricted and adopt a robust Conflict of Interest policy to limit the influence of the fossil fuel industry.