Baku's biggest legacy will be a reform of COP

As cities across the world face the growing impacts of climate crises, with each season proving to be more erratic than the last, the latest edition of the United Nations' annual Conference of the Parties (COP) in Baku, Azerbaijan fell woefully short of meeting much-needed requirements for climate finance, and transitioning away from fossil fuels.

- MARK WATTS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF C40 CITIES

Mark Watts, the executive director of C40 Cities—a network of 100 international cities, including five from India—spoke to Shivani Singh about the efficacy of climate negotiation and its impact on cities in the Global South. Edited excerpts:

Has the underwhelming outcome of COP29 derailed the city climate agenda?

It has not derailed city climate action. There's so much dynamism and leadership on climate change at the city level—82% of our members are cutting emissions faster than their respective nation-states, and that's not going to stop.

Baku was a missed opportunity. The $300 billion in climate finance was much smaller than the absolute minimum we needed from a COP.

Baku's biggest legacy will probably be a significant reform of COPs, so we will see less focus on negotiation between national governments and more on implementation at all levels. This will probably be kicked off by cities coming to the next COP and showing what they've done in the last year to deliver against their Paris Agreement-compliant plans. There is a shift in the goalpost.

How is that shift going to happen?

We started seeing it at COP28, when the UAE invited subnational leaders to a massive gathering in the blue zone, an official space with ministers, prime ministers, and presidents at the start of the COP. What I'm arguing should happen is an evolution of that. COP needs to become an implementation forum. Hopefully, it will be delivered at COP30 [in Belém, Brazil].