Five key takeaways from COP29 and the road ahead
It’s been two weeks since the curtains closed on COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The annual climate conference ended with the usual last-minute challenges and showcased a mix of progress, frustration, and the urgent need for action.
Ahead of the conference, Clean Air Task Force (CATF) called on world leaders to consider six essential reframes for climate action. With high stakes and even higher hopes, this year’s conference highlighted ongoing challenges surrounding key recurring issues including establishing an international carbon market, methane mitigation, and climate finance – while also exposing persistent gaps in global coordination and implementation.
Now, with the conference behind us and the deadline for Biennial Transparency Reports and updated National Determined Contributions fast approaching, here are CATF’s five key takeaways from COP29 and how they shape the road ahead to COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
1. Climate finance negotiations: Progress falls short, but opportunities remain
Climate finance once again dominated the COP agenda, with nations wrestling with how much developed economies should contribute to support emerging and developing countries in combating climate change. The outcome: A commitment of $300 billion annually—far short of the $1.3 trillion figure that dominated discussions leading up to and during the conference.
The Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group, representing 45 nations and 1.1 billion people, condemned the outcome while India outright rejected the finance text—officially known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for Climate Finance. Notably, the text “encourages” additional contributions from other nations, signaling a push for greater involvement from countries like China and Saudi Arabia—wealthier nations that are not classified as ‘developed’ by the United Nations—which have faced increasing calls to step up their climate finance commitments.
The final text introduces a “Baku to Belém Road Map to 1.3T,” aimed at identifying pathways to unlock trillions in climate finance “through grants, concessional and non-debt-creating instruments.” But setting a climate finance target is only half the battle. With capital costs in Africa averaging 15.6%— more than triple those Western Europe and the U.S.— addressing these barriers will require innovative solutions like government debt guarantees, tax incentives, and currency swaps to reduce costs and attract investment.
2. Global carbon markets: A major milestone with work ahead
After almost a decade of negotiations, COP29 saw a breakthrough on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. These new rules establish a framework for trading carbon credits generated by reducing or removing greenhouse gas emissions—a milestone that could reshape how countries tackle the climate challenge.
But the real work lies ahead. Trust in carbon markets and credits has eroded significantly, and CATF has stressed that robust oversight is critical to restoring confidence, ensuring genuine climate benefits, and preventing the proliferation of fraudulent credits. The UNFCCC supervisory body will need to ensure rigorous standards and transparency to make sure carbon credits deliver real climate benefits—not empty promises. This global market holds enormous potential to funnel much-needed climate finance to emerging and developing economies, helping to bridge the funding gap.
As these markets take shape, CATF will push for gold-standard credits, particularly in forest carbon and biomass-based carbon removal, ensuring these mechanisms drive forward meaningful climate action.
3. Methane sees critical progress, but swift implementation is needed
Methane—a potent greenhouse gas with more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 over a 20-year period—remained a key focal point at the annual climate conference. New commitments emerged to reduce methane emissions across energy, waste, and agriculture supported by initiatives to improve measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems. The U.S., China, and Azerbaijan teamed up to host a high-level summit on methane and other pollutants, featuring announcements such as the U.S.’s newly finalized waste methane fee, the European Union’s roadmap for methane abatement, and the UK’s £5 million pledge to help regulate methane emissions in low- and middle-income nations.
At the Global Methane Pledge Ministerial, countries reaffirmed their collective goal to cut methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. At the ministerial, countries also announced the Declaration on Methane Abatement and Waste Management in NDCs in Latin American Countries and the Caribbean. The declaration, in line with the Declaration on Reducing Methane from Organic Waste, commits countries in the region to reducing methane emissions by incorporating waste sector improvements into their 2025 climate plans, emphasizing landfill closures, enhanced data collection, environmental justice, and innovative financing.
CATF has long championed methane mitigation as one of the most cost-effective and impactful ways to slow near-term warming. The announcements at COP29 are a step in the right direction but must be followed by near-term implementation.
4. Driving global collaboration for carbon management
Carbon management technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, are steadily being embedded in the climate action plans of countries globally. The Carbon Management Challenge (CMC), launched in 2023, is a pivotal initiative advancing these efforts. Supported by 23 governments— with Bahrain, Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Senegal joining in the last year—the CMC aims to scale up carbon management technologies to meet ambitious climate targets.
At COP29, the CMC hosted a ministerial roundtable with representatives from over 20 participating countries issuing a joint call to action, emphasizing the need for greater international collaboration to accelerate the adoption of carbon management technologies. The ministerial also underscored key actions to drive projects forward, including addressing capacity and financing challenges.
CMC countries are collectively pursuing the goal of operationalizing projects capable of capturing or storing 1 gigaton of CO2 annually by 2030. However, achieving this target will require robust input from NGOs and industry to shape policy and regulatory frameworks and multilateral agreements to advance project-specific data sharing, which CATF called for at a private high-level roundtable in Baku. CATF also urges increased participation from EU member states such as France, Poland, and Germany. These steps will be crucial to bending the curve on climate and ensuring carbon management technologies reach their full potential.
5. Nuclear momentum grows with 31 nations committing to triple capacity
At COP29, six additional countries signed onto the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy, bringing the total to 31 countries pledging to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The new signatories—El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Nigeria, and Turkey—signal growing momentum for nuclear as a clean, firm energy source.
Tripling nuclear capacity by 2050 would provide zero-carbon electricity, heat, and fuel around the clock and accelerate decarbonization timelines by up to a decade. Notably, emerging economies are increasingly recognizing nuclear’s potential to enhance energy access and security. However, scaling nuclear energy requires innovative approaches to deployment, safety, and financing. During COP29, the U.S. committed to adding 35 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity 2035, offering a detailed national framework of key actions to reach this goal.
Through the Nuclear Scaling Initiative with EFI Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, CATF aims to catalyze and build a new nuclear energy ecosystem to scale to 50 or more gigawatts of clean, safe, and secure nuclear power per year by the 2030s, a tenfold increase of the current deployment rate.
The road ahead to Belém
COP29 demonstrated that while progress is possible, it’s rarely enough. The road to COP30 in Belém will demand a renewed focus on implementation, accountability, and bridging divides between stakeholders. What happens between now and then will depend on countries’ ability to uphold the spirit of multilateralism and whether the COP process can continue to deliver tangible progress. This will be no small feat given the complexities of the year ahead, including the emergence of new governments, ongoing conflicts, and the strain of fraying trade relationships on geopolitical relations.
CATF will be on the ground in Belém in 2025, continuing to push hard conversations and advocating for progress and implementation. In the months ahead, we’ll be tracking the submission of Biennial Transparency Reports, due by year’s end, and monitoring updates to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ahead of the February 2025 deadline.
