Ashley Siefert Nunes
WASHINGTON—Experts from the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will be attending this year’s annual United Nations climate change talks (also referred to as COP29), which are being held in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 11-22. They will join officials from more than 190 nations—as well as representatives of subnational governments, businesses and other nongovernmental organizations—working to ensure all countries are on track to increase their climate ambition to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement in reach, with a heightened focus this year on the importance of international climate financing to help meet those goals.
These talks come during a year of record-breaking heat, and on the heels of a particularly deadly and dangerous spate of extreme weather and climate disasters fueled by climate change. Additionally, a flurry of scientific reports—including the International Energy Agency’s 2024 World Energy Outlook and the United Nations Environment Programme’s 2024 Emissions Gap Report—paint a picture of how far off track the world is currently from meeting global climate goals, how much higher global average temperatures could rise if nations fail to take urgent corrective actions to address the climate crisis, and what actions must be taken to make steep, rapid cuts in heat-trapping emissions and to transition to clean energy. They also come right after the U.S. elections, which have global significance for climate efforts.
While the United States—the world’s largest historical emitter of global warming emissions—has pledged to reduce its emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, even with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act current policies remain insufficient to achieve this goal with the country on track to cut heat-trapping emissions 32-43%. Collectively, nations are on a path to meet or exceed between 2.6 and 3.1 degrees Celsius of warming globally, if pledges remain stagnant. To catch up, the United States and other major emitting countries, need to put additional policies in place urgently to increase clean energy deployment and phase out fossil fuels, and wealthy nations need to ramp up climate finance for lower income countries to also cut their emissions.
Given the latest science, it is vital that nations act urgently, including at COP29, by doing the following:
- Raise the ambition of national emission reduction commitments, or NDCs. Countries are obligated to submit revised nationally determined contribution (NDC) pledges for 2035 by February. The United States and other major emitters should signal ambitious NDCs aligned with science. Recent UCS modeling shows the United States could achieve emission reductions of at least 70% below 2005 levels by 2035 if policymakers take immediate actions to significantly invest in accelerated clean energy deployment while phasing out fossil fuels.
- Secure an agreement to increase international climate finance for low-income countries. Building on the initial goal of marshaling $100 billion annually by 2020, the United States and other rich nations must lead on offering a robust next tranche of financial commitments to help low-income countries cut emissions, adapt to climate change, and cope with climate loss and damage. This goal—also called the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance—should be on the order of $1 trillion per year, starting in 2025. Funding should be primarily grant-based and could include innovative sources of funding like pollution levies and wealth taxes, as well as a broadening of the contributor base of countries that provide funding.
- Defend collectively against the fossil fuel industry’s obstruction and perennial bad-faith efforts by reinforcing the commitment nations made at last year’s climate talks to transition away from fossil fuels.
In the face of global and national actions that fall short of the pace and ambition required per the latest science, the number and variety of climate lawsuits has grown with state, national and international courts emerging as additional venues for people and communities to seek justice and accountability for climate damages.
UCS experts have extensive experience doing live and taped TV, radio, and print interviews with major national and international media outlets. Please contact UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes if you have questions or would like to arrange interviews with these experts before, during or after the negotiations. She will be attending the U.N. climate talks in person and will be in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 8-24.
UCS Experts Attending COP29 in Baku:
Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS Dr. Cleetus works with lawmakers to develop effective and equitable climate and clean energy policies at the state, national and international level. She has been attending the U.N.’s international climate talks and has partnered with the international community on climate and energy policies for about 20 years. Dr. Cleetus can discuss the overall state of play of the UNFCCC negotiations, climate finance including the NCQG, Loss and Damage, fossil fuel phaseout, the Global Stocktake, U.S. NDC, pathways to reducing U.S. heat-trapping emissions, impact of the U.S. elections on climate and clean energy policies, risks and costs of climate change impacts, relevant climate change reports (including those from the IPCC, IEA and UNEP), and increasing resilience to climate change. She is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and will be attending the U.N. climate talks in Baku from November 8-24. Click here for Dr. Cleetus’ biography and a list of her peer-reviewed publications. Her latest blogposts can be found here.
Kathy Mulvey, the accountability campaign director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS Mulvey leads the climate accountability campaign at UCS, which exposes and challenges the deceptive and destructive conduct of major fossil fuel corporations and provides research, expertise, and visibility to litigation and other efforts seeking to hold these corporations and their surrogates accountable for fraud and for climate damages. Mulvey has attended previous COPs and can discuss the need for nations to uphold their agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, corporate accountability for major fossil fuel polluters, mounting pressure for sufficient Loss and Damage funding from the rising tide of climate litigation, fossil fuel industry deception and disinformation campaigns, and precedents from the global tobacco treaty for protecting public policy from corporate conflicts of interest at the international and national levels. She works in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and will be attending the U.N. climate talks in Baku from November 8-24. Click here for Mulvey’s biography. Her latest blogposts can be found here.
Dr. Marc Alessi, a science fellow at UCS Dr. Alessi is a science fellow focusing on climate attribution science. He uses the latest scientific modeling and machine learning approaches to improve climate attribution science methods to better inform Loss and Damage funding. His PhD analyzed how different patterns of ocean surface temperature affect the rate of global warming, and he previously helped lead an intercomparison project among the world’s top climate modeling centers. He works in Syracuse, New York, and will be attending the U.N. climate talks in Baku from November 8-16. Click here for Dr. Alessi’s biography. His latest blogposts can be found here.
Other UCS Experts Available in the United States:
Dr. Delta Merner, the lead scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at UCS Dr. Merner provides scientific evidence to support legal cases that hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate-related damages and deceptive practices. As the lead scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at UCS, she also connects legal teams with scientists working at the intersection of climate science and law. Dr. Merner can speak to Loss and Damage litigation, the U.N. International Court of Justice advisory opinion process, deception and interference from fossil fuel interests at COP, and climate and source attribution science. She is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and can take media requests remotely. Click here for Dr. Merner’s biography and a list of her peer-reviewed publications. Her latest blogposts can be found here.
Adam Markham, the deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at UCS Markham has several decades of experience with international climate policy, and currently works with policymakers to spur action to safeguard national parks, protected areas, and natural and cultural heritage sites around the globe from worsening climate change impacts. He is an internationally recognized expert on climate change vulnerability, impacts and resilience strategies at UNESCO World Heritage sites, and also advocates to have cultural heritage preservation included within the UNFCCC framework. He is currently leading an international project to have cultural heritage, including Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge, better represented in Loss and Damage frameworks and financing. Markham is based in Wilton, Connecticut, and can take media requests remotely. Click here for Markham’s biography. His latest blogposts can be found here.
Relevant UCS Analyses and Resources:
- A blogpost from Dr. Cleetus on international climate priorities for 2024.
- A UCS explainer on Loss and Damage.
- “Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience: Rising Seas, Disruptive Tides, and Risks to Coastal Infrastructure,” found here.
- “The Fossil Fuels Behind Forest Fires: Quantifying the Contribution of Major Carbon Producers to Increasing Wildfire Risk,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “Too Hot to Work: Assessing the Threats Climate Change Poses to Outdoor Workers,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “A Transformative Climate Action Framework: Putting People at the Center of Our Nation’s Clean Energy Transition,” found here.
- “Attributing Ocean Acidification to Major Carbon Producers,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “Killer Heat in the United States: Climate Choices and the Future of Dangerously Hot Days,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for U.S. Coastal Real Estate,” found here.
- “The Rise in Global Atmospheric CO2, Surface Temperature, and Sea Level from Emissions Traced to Major Carbon Producers,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of U.S. Coastal Communities,” found here (peer-reviewed).
- “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate,” found here.
- “The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation,” found here.