Q&A: What can international climate negotiations still accomplish?

Something is better than nothing – that’s one way to sum up the U.N. climate conference that wrapped up this past Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan. The gathering’s eleventh-hour agreement calls on wealthy countries to collectively pay $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer countries decrease emissions and build climate change resilience – far short of the $1.3 trillion a year many developing nations have called for. 

Below, experts in a range of fields affiliated with Stanford schools and programs discuss the conference’s outcome, how the changing U.S. political landscape might affect progress on climate change, and more.

Our experts include Stanford political scientist Amanda Kennard, ecologist and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment director Chris Field, and Nfamara Dampha, a climate negotiator at COP29 who is affiliated with a core partner of the Stanford-based Natural Capital Project.

In Baku during the climate summit, Kennard spoke at a Stanford co-sponsored side event focused on nature-based solutions, initiatives which promote the use of natural resources and ecosystems to mitigate and adapt to climate change. She studies the politics of climate change and global governance as an assistant professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences, a center fellow (by courtesy) in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and an assistant professor (by courtesy) of environmental social sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Field has worked extensively with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a partnership between the world’s governments and the scientific community. His leadership of an IPCC project resulted in a paper that established the foundation for the kinds of responses necessary when climate change causes large increases in extreme conditions, such as heat waves and heavy precipitation. Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and a senior fellow in the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Dampha is a lead scientist and research director of NatCap TEEMs (The Earth-Economy Modelers) at the University of Minnesota, a core partner of the Stanford-based Natural Capital Project. He represented his home country, The Gambia, and the 45 least developed countries at the U.N. conference as a lead negotiator on climate adaptation planning.

Equity in the COP29 agreement

This COP was billed as an opportunity to work out the financing for wealthy nations to help developing nations decrease emissions and build climate change resilience. Was it successful? How might President-elect Donald Trump’s stated plans to withdraw from global climate agreements effect the outcome?

Field: Regardless of how anyone sees the final agreement, it won’t have teeth to require compliance. Just as rich countries have dragged their feet in meeting the $100 billion target set in 2009, there is no reason to expect the new target will see the necessary rapid, ambitious action. That’s especially true if, as expected, the U.S. decreases its commitments or leaves the Paris Agreement entirely.

Dampha: The deal is not just disappointing – it is profoundly alarming and contradicts the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities of parties under the Convention. The $300 billion figure not only falls staggeringly short of what is needed, but it dangerously dilutes accountability by relying on a patchwork of sources – public, private, bilateral, multilateral, and so-called alternative sources. This is not equity. This is not justice. And it is certainly not the ambitious climate action the world desperately needs.

The value of international climate conferences

Critics question the relevance of international climate conferences given the slow pace of implementation. What value do these gatherings still hold?

Dampha: The annual climate conferences are the only stage where the world's most vulnerable nations can demand climate justice, reparations, and restoration. We are here to call out developed countries whose industrialization and unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases have come at an unbearable cost: widespread human suffering, destruction of livelihoods, environmental degradation, and the extinction of countless species. 

Field: The Paris Agreement has played an important role in pressuring countries to come up with plans. In some cases, these plans and the pressure of having them public has accelerated action on decarbonization. I think the fairest characterization of the Paris Agreement is that it is working, just way more slowly than the world intended and way more slowly than the world needs.

Impacts of potential U.S. withdrawal

What impacts could a potential U.S. withdrawal from the COP have on the U.S. itself?

Field: If the U.S. withdraws from the Paris Agreement or decreases federal investments in decarbonization, we will still see important actions to decarbonize the country. Many of these are driven by the fact that non-emitting technologies, such as solar panels and induction stoves, are cheaper or better than emitting technologies. In other cases, states, communities, companies, and individuals will pick up some of the leadership that the federal government drops.

Kennard: One counter intuitive thing that may come out of this is that other nations could seize the opportunity to outflank the U.S. in terms of investment in green industries. The Inflation Reduction Act – the Biden Administration’s signature piece of climate legislation – has been a sore spot for European policymakers and businesses because it created such favorable (some would say unfair) investment conditions in the U.S.

In areas like battery manufacturing, green hydrogen, and electric vehicles there’s some jockeying to see who can emerge at the forefront of the future low carbon economy. If the U.S. pulls out of that competition by repealing the IRA – as Trump has promised to do – then other countries may try to capitalize on that.

Hope for meaningful climate action

Do you see any reason for optimism or hope for meaningful climate action, either based on developments at this conference or on broader trends? 

Kennard: The U.S. added 150,000 new jobs in clean energy last year, much of that driven by the Inflation Reduction Act. That accounts for 36% of all new jobs in the South. The people in those jobs now have a livelihood that depends on the green transition. And there’s hope that the incoming Congress will see the benefit of this to their own constituents and not be so eager to join President Trump in undermining our most important piece of national climate legislation. Long term, decarbonization efforts don’t live or die based on the decisions of a single U.S. presidential administration. The climate movement isn’t going to pack up and go home because of political headwinds.