CCI team’s call for urgent, just & effective mobilization sets up big work in 2025
CCI joined COP29 negotiations, side events, and coalition work to input into the process; we also hosted the People's Pavilion digital platform, diplomacy workshops, and other events.
The COP29 round of UN Climate Change negotiations was set to address high stakes, urgent needs, and lagging timelines, for action to slow and reverse worsening climate disruption. Some of the key issues were a new global climate financing goal, efforts to improve adaptation and resilience measures, the need for urgent, worldwide mobilization of resources to address and overcome loss and damage, and questions around stakeholder participation in policy-making.
As we noted in our statement on the outcomes from COP29:
New finance commitments are meaningful progress, but funding targets must be seen as a floor, not a ceiling.
Much more is needed to achieve justice and the practical resourcing of the needed global transformation.
Expanding access, accelerating delivery, and including all of society in climate upgrades will be essential.
Cooperative activation of climate-smart trade and finance, and real-world action are needed to legitimize outcome.
Not nearly enough was achieved in Baku to set the global economy on course for successful climate-resilient development. Part of the reason for that is a generalized resistance to recognizing in operational terms the fundamental ethical obligation to do right by the vulnerable—in all countries, in all regions.
That said, I am deeply proud of the work our delegation did in Baku—advocating for urgent, just, and effective mobilization. Serious reforms across many sectors—including food, banking, energy, and trade—will be needed, and our team is working to make those reforms real, fair, and effective.
We had 13 delegates on the ground in Baku, including 2 from the US, 4 from Nigeria, 3 from Ghana, and one each from Cameroon, India, Japan, and Zambia. They joined negotiating sessions as observers, represented civil society networks, and supported national delegations, while joining or leading side events that brought critical substance into the COP29 landscape of policy discussion.
The COP29 edition of The People’s Pavilion added new co-sponsors and collaborators, and live-streamed 323 events to 638 registered People’s Pavilion members; we estimate total engagement with streams posted in the People’s Pavilion at 11,141—an increase of 5% over last year. This year, we also added a detailed interactive resource library that provided close to real-time updates on key events and documents, throughout the process.
CCI again co-hosted a formal COP29 side event on Agrifood Finance and Enabling Policies to Drive Climate Action, with the FAIRR Initiative and the TAPP Coalition. During the Good Food Finance panel that was part of this event:
Myra L. Jackson—a renowned Diplomat of the Biosphere who serves as Climate Change Focal Point for the Earth Law Center and as a a member of the CCI Board, who also led a delegation of students—emphasized the importance of stopping the destruction of nature, calling on negotiators to act in service of the rights of nature.
Dr. Michael Terungwa David—founder of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation and CCI Africa Coordinator—echoing the call for trust-building, stressed the vulnerability of rural communities and food supplies to climate impacts, and described relationship-building over time as a key lever for building political will.
Dr. Isatis Cintrón, a climate scientist who is also a member of the CCI Board and Director of the ACE Observatory, joined negotiations around citizen engagement through Action for Climate Empowerment and the start-up and mobilization of resources through the Loss and Damage Fund. A critical addition to this work was the Participation Blueprint for the Loss and Damage Fund, which she published earlier this year through the ACE Observatory.
We have been advocating for robust, ongoing stakeholder engagement in the design, delivery, and tracking of climate finance arrangements, through a Capital to Communities approach. We are encouraged by the inclusion of language in the COP29 outcome reflecting this idea, but we need to see real-world implementation of participatory decision-making.
In my message to the COP29 on cooperative climate action as foundational for future peace, prosperity, and wellbeing, I expressed the Climate Civics perspective that negotiators should:
Remember the mandate—to prevent dangerous climate change, together;
Set collective ambition where it should be—zero harm to people and nature, with robust climate-resilient development being an engine for peace, prosperity, and wellbeing;
Develop innovative insight-sharing tools—not just for the UNFCCC process itself, but to allow mainstream decision-makers at all levels to operationalize climate resilience insights;
Embrace climate-smart trade—recognizing that some nations carry a greater ethical burden and no one should be punished financially for their vulnerability;
Improve benefits of next steps by linking them to mid-range prosperity goals and the right of future generations to exist in a safe and healthy (livable) world.
I am also proud to note our ongoing collaboration with The Fletcher School at Tufts University—the Earth Diplomacy Leadership Initiative—produced vital insights that fed into the negotiation process, and which point the way toward higher ambition in the SB62 and COP30 rounds of negotiations in 2025.
The work our team did in Baku—and through partnerships like the Earth Diplomacy Leadership Initiative, the Climate Value Exchange, the Good Food Finance Network, and the People's Pavilion, each of which extend beyond the walls of the negotiating venue to reach people around the world—has now set the stage for an ambitious series of action-focused discussions in 2025.