The 29th World Conference on Climate Change begins in Baku

The 29th World Conference on Climate Change begins today in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, BNR reported . About 100 world leaders are expected at the forum, and the key topic will be finance related to climate change and its consequences.

About 50 thousand government representatives, investors and activists will gather at the event, which has already been designated as a “climate finance conference”. According to the program, it should be from November 11 to 22, but it is now expected that the negotiations will continue even after that.

Developing countries will want assurances that trillions will be made available over the next decade to help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deal with increasingly destructive natural phenomena from rising temperatures.

“The world is facing more and more extreme weather events, rising sea levels and unpredictable seasons. Communities must be prepared and resilient. Critical is climate finance, which is actually the big opportunity to turn decisions into action, especially for the most vulnerable countries in need of resources,” explained Simon Steele, UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change.

Representatives of the World Health Organization will also attend and demand funding to be allocated to mitigate climate impacts on human health.

“It certainly starts with us having to stop funding the thing that is killing us today. And to find a just and fair transition beyond fossil fuels so that we can protect our well-being, biodiversity, the health of the planet and its people,“, emphasized Dr. Vanessa Carey, Special Envoy of the WHO Secretary-General on Climate Change and Health.

The focus of the conference is to establish a new climate finance target to replace the $100 billion commitment set in 2009. Estimates are that the new annual target will be between $500 billion and $1 trillion, which is less than 1 percent of world gross domestic product.

Discussions are also expected to expand the list of countries that pay for this, or the so-called high-income countries defined 30 years ago. These are, for example, the UK, the US, Japan and Germany, but meanwhile China, India and South Korea have also increased their economic power as well as their carbon emissions.