With many in the climate sector left reeling following Trump’s election victory, this year’s Conference of the Parties, COP29, could not come at a more vital time.
The COPs, instigated by the United Nations, are the most important global meetings on climate change.
Representatives from almost two hundred countries meet each year to discuss the most pressing global issues relating to climate change and debate potential solutions to the problem. The first meeting was held in 1992, when attendees signed a treaty called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
COP29 is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan, a country that has publicly announced plans to increase gas production. And, sadly, some big-name attendees (and hefty carbon emitters) will be missing from this year’s event, notably Joe Biden from the US, Xi Jinping from China, and Narendra Modi from India.
While there are many conflicting priorities across a range of nations, a key shared objective is how to tackle global warming. The agreement signed at COP21 in Paris in 2015 saw world leaders commit to try to maintain global temperature rises to less than 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels.
Since then, however, we’ve experienced three consecutive hottest-ever years (2022 and 2023 were the warmest on record and 2024 is projected by the European climate service to be the warmest ever). We’ve also seen the impact of warming oceans, with one of the worst hurricane seasons for major storms and financial losses, and the recent flooding in Valencia, Spain.
At last year’s COP28 in Dubai, governments pledged to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels. While this was not the more emphatic promise to ‘phase out’ that many climate scientists had been hoping for, it was nonetheless a significant step in the recognition that the world must decrease its reliance on fossil fuels to keep the increasingly devasting effects of climate change at bay.
There are growing concerns that some countries would like to roll back on previous commitments regarding the use of fossil fuels. With Trump once again leading the US, the pressure is on to secure meaningful outcomes at this year’s conference.
But how does all this relate to you and your money?
You might think a global climate conference has little to do with your personal finances, but there are links.
A rise in energy bills?
Agreements made at COP29 may mean changes in the UK’s net-zero targets which, in turn, could impact on the energy mix used to provide power across the country.
According to Carbon Brief, renewable energy provided 43 percent of the UK’s energy mix in 2023, with power from fossil fuel sources falling to the lowest rate ever. The new Labour government promised in the recent Budget to make Britain a ‘clean energy superpower’, with plans to double onshore wind capacity, expand solar power, and launch Great British Energy to install thousands of renewable power projects and scale investment in clean technologies.
This renewed drive towards green power may affect where we get our energy from and how much we pay for it in our household energy bills.
Climate finance = increased taxes?
This year’s COP has been labelled ‘the finance COP’, with the aim of agreeing a new global finance goal to increase the flow of money from the world’s wealthiest to support poorer, developing nations that are often hardest hit by the impacts of climate change.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell indicated in a speech on day one of the Conference that, without robust reforms to the global financial system, grocery and energy bills could increase further, countries could become economically uncompetitive, and we could expect further global instability, risking livelihoods around the world.
In the UK, our contribution to these funds primarily comes from aid budgets funded by our taxes. Unless private financial institutions can help bridge the gap created by the new, higher climate finance target, we may face an increase in taxes.
How to play your part
Climate action doesn’t have to be left to the suits, though. There are meaningful individual actions we can all take to play our part.
As Niklas Hagelberg, UNEP’s Climate Change coordinator, said: "The climate emergency demands action from all of us. We need to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and everyone has a role to play. We, as individuals, must change our consumption habits and pressure those who represent us – our employers, our politicians – to move rapidly to a low-carbon world.”
Here's three actions you can take:
1. Understand your own carbon footprint, and take steps to reduce it
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, between 40 to 70 percent of all GHG emissions reductions will come from people – how we live, travel, consume, and eat.
Government and corporate action is important, too, but individual action counts.
Apps like Zero’s can help you understand the environmental impact of your spending, and what you can do to reduce it.
2. Move your money
If you’re banking with one of the UK’s Big Five, it’s likely your money is being used to support environmentally destructive and planet-warming sectors such as fossil fuels and deforestation. You can find out more via campaigns such as Make My Money Matter. This site also has information about pensions and other investments.
3. Tell people
The more we discuss climate change, the more taking action will become the norm.