World leaders have gathered in Central Asia for the United Nations’ 29th annual climate change conference (COP29).
Over the next two weeks, representatives from around 200 countries will discuss plans to tackle climate change.
For the third year in a row, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not attend. Instead, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen is leading the Australian delegation.
Several other world leaders will not be in attendance.
Here’s what’s on the agenda.
What is COP29?
COP29’s attendees are the 198 countries that have signed the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The framework aims to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate.
At COP21 in 2015, countries negotiated the Paris Agreement — a commitment to stop global average temperatures from warming more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century, is when emissions first started to rise.
Key issues
Funding has been a major issue at the last two UN climate conferences.
In 2022, at COP27, countries agreed to compensate “particularly vulnerable” developing countries for climate-related “loss and damage”. The details and structure of how this compensation would work were negotiated at COP28.
At this year’s conference, countries will agree to a new “climate finance goal”.
First developed at COP15 in 2009, the current climate finance goal is a payment of $US100 billion per year ($AU1.5 billion) to developing countries, to help them adapt to climate change.
Countries increased their contributions each year until the goal was reached in 2022.
In a speech opening COP29, senior UN official Simon Stiell said: “If nations can’t build resilience into supply chains, the entire global economy will be brought to its knees… An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every single nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”
Attendance
France, Canada, Australia, China, South Africa, and the U.S. are among the countries represented by government officials at COP29, not their leaders.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump removed the country from the Paris Agreement during his first term in office. President Joe Biden returned the U.S. to the agreement, but Trump has said he will remove the country again. This would see the U.S. excluded from future COPs.
One of Trump’s campaign promises was to increase investment in fossil fuels.
