(MENAFN- Trend News Agency)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23. At COP29 in Baku,
rich countries, the low-income countries, North, South, should all
come together to address the global challenge of climate change,
Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International energy Agency
(IEA), said in an exclusive interview with Trend .
Key takeaways from previous COP29 dialogues and upcoming
meeting in New York
“We had two high-level dialogues on COP29 and there were a few
important outcomes of those two meetings. The first one was, in my
view, a very high level of participation, both in terms of the
countries, but also energy companies and the finance industry.
There was a lot of interest on that. Second, the governments are
very determined to build upon the COP28 success and it's the COP29.
Baku is another success story. There is a lot of willingness there.
And the third one is the COP29 team's and the Azerbaijan
government's inclusive approach to bring everybody around the table
and to find consensus between the countries are much appreciated,”
he said.
Birol noted that now the discussion is focusing more and more on
the financing issue.
“This will be a key topic. At the same time, the parties that
have joined our meetings in Paris and London are looking forward to
have some concrete deliverables in terms of the COP29 outcomes,” he
added.
IEA executive director noted that a huge number of requests are
being received to participate in the third one, which is going to
take place in September in New York, in the context of the United
Nations General Assembly.
“We are now looking for a bigger venue for this meeting as the
expectations from COP29 increases day by day. We would like to do
two things because September is getting closer to COP29. First, we
would like to try to get consensus on the financing issue among the
countries and to get both the developed and developing countries
together with the meeting which is chaired by the COP29
president-designate, Mukhtar Babayev and myself,” he said.
Birol noted that the second target is to get some concrete
potential deliverables, such as concrete steps in terms of methane
reduction, the global target for battery developments, the global
target for electricity grids.
“These are two different avenues. The first one is about trying
to get consensus on financing and the second is the building upon
the COP28. We are going to discuss what kind of next concrete
deliverable targets the world can agree in Baku. Just before that
event, the International Energy Agency is going to present a report
on what are the implications of the full implementation of the
COP28 results and what needs to be done in COP29 to bring those
trends in a more sustainable way.
Because as you know, for example, in COP28, there is an
agreement on tripling the renewable energy capacity and doubling of
the energy efficiency, which we suggested to COP28 presidency. Now
we are suggesting to complement this, to make the energy systems
secure and reach our climate targets, to determine what kind of
additional concrete measures are needed with respect to batteries,
grids and others,” he added.
Climate financing challenges
Birol believes that climate financing is the nerve center of all
the problems.
“Let me give you the context. About $2 trillion are invested in
clean energy financing in the entire world this year. This is not
good enough, but encouraging. But the problem is that about 85
percent of this $2 trillion is invested in the advanced economies
and in China. Only 15 percent is invested in the emerging and
developing world where more than two-thirds of the global
population lives. So, there is a major problem here. And we have to
come up with a creative mechanism where the countries, the parties,
do agree in order to make sure that the emerging and developing
countries do also receive clean energy financing. Because if we are
not able to do that, we have no chance whatsoever to reach our
climate targets,” said the IEA executive director.
He pointed out that problems cannot be solved only with the
increasing climate financing in the advanced economies and in
China.
“There is a huge amount of emissions coming from Asia, Africa,
Latin America, and we will not be able to reach our targets.
Therefore, for me, this is a critical issue. Both COP29 and COP30
need to focus on financing. I believe that in addition to the COP29
presidency, the G20 presidency of Brazil this year should work in
order to get the necessary funds for the emerging and developing
countries,” he said.
Ways of creating effective control
mechanism
“All the ways come to Baku. The countries need to come with a
new nationally determined contribution. They should decide on what
are they going to do between now and 2035, in the next 10 years?
And these plans should be ambitious enough in order to bring the
world to a 1.5° trajectory. The discussions in Baku will play a
very important role here. That's why the International Energy
Agency has decided to support the COP29 presidency, so that there
are meaningful discussions among the parties to come up with
ambitious, nationally determined contribution plans.
If they are not ambitious enough, if it doesn't bring us the
1.5° target, it is not a good outcome. So therefore, the COP29
presidency needs to encourage all the parties to have ambitious
nationally determined contribution plans for the next 10 years. All
the countries and the IEA will be fully supporting the COP29
presidency here,” said Birol.
The IEA executive director noted that at COP29, he would like to
see that the rich countries, the low-income countries, North,
South, all come together to address this global challenge.
“It's a challenge not only for the rich, it's not only a
challenge for the poor, not for North, not for South, for all the
countries. If we are able to leave the geopolitical fracturing
around the world now, put aside geopolitical divisions, and focus
on a global challenge for everybody, and take some concrete
decisions and agree some concrete targets, it will be a very
successful meeting, and the Baku COP29 will be remembered as a
successful milestone in reaching this global target,” he
concluded.
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