COP29, COP16 presidents hold talks on climate finance

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev engaged in discussions on climate finance with COP16 President Abdulrahman Al-Fadli.

The meeting was announced on COP29 official X account, Caliber.Az reports.

The #COP29 President met with Abdulrahman Alfadley, #COP16 President. Discussions focused on leveraging COP29’s finance mechanisms for sustainable land and water management. #COP29Azerbaijan #UNCCD #COP16Riyadh pic.twitter.com/nMndBeTtZD

— COP29 Azerbaijan (@COP29_AZ) December 3, 2024

“The COP29 President met with Abdulrahman Al-Fadli, COP16 President. Discussions focused on leveraging COP29’s finance mechanisms for sustainable land and water management,” the post reads.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) finalized with a new finance goal to help countries to protect their people and economies against climate disasters, and share in the vast benefits of the clean energy boom.

With a central focus on climate finance, COP29 brought together nearly 200 countries in Baku, Azerbaijan, and reached a breakthrough agreement that will:

-Triple finance to developing countries, from the previous goal of USD 100 billion annually, to USD 300 billion annually by 2035.

-Secure efforts of all actors to work together to scale up finance to developing countries, from public and private sources, to the amount of USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.

Known formally as the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), it was agreed after two weeks of intensive negotiations and several years of preparatory work, in a process that requires all nations to unanimously agree on every word of the agreement.

The sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) got underway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on December 2.

COP 16 is more than a critical milestone – it represents a moonshot moment to raise global ambition and accelerate action on land and drought resilience through a people-centered approach. 

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the global voice for land and one of the three major UN treaties known as the Rio Conventions, alongside climate and biodiversity.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the main decision-making body of UNCCD’s 197 Parties – 196 countries and the European Union. COP16 will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 2-13 December 2024 under the theme “Our Land. Our Future.”

By Vafa Guliyeva