UAE, Azerbaijan, Brazil join forces to limit global warming to 1.5C

The United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Brazil, former and future hosts of UN climate summits, are joining forces to push for an international agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

On Tuesday, the UAE’s Conference of the Parties (COP28) presidency said that it would form a “troika” to focus on ensuring that more ambitious CO2-cutting pledges are made ahead of a deadline at the COP30 summit to be held in 2025 in Belem, Brazil. Azerbaijan will host this year’s United Nations climate event in November.

The 1.5C limit will probably be reached between 2030 and 2035, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Little progress

At COP28, the world agreed to “transition away” from fossil fuels, but there was no progress on unblocking financial flows to developing countries, a major sticking point in negotiations.

This issue is set to be a central theme of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where a new target is expected to be set for the financial support provided by developed countries for climate change.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, rich countries are about two years late in meeting their initial pledge of $100bn in annual climate funding by 2022.

The UN’s high-level expert group on climate finance said in 2022 that developing nations, excluding China, need to spend some $2.4 trillion a year on clean energy and climate resilience by 2030 – four times current levels.

“We are committed to leveraging our strength as a bridge builder between the developed and developing world as host of COP29, to accelerate efforts to keep 1.5 in reach,” said COP29 President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev, who is Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources.

“Key to that will be establishing a new climate finance goal that reflects the scale and urgency of the climate challenge.”