The road to global climate efforts

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The annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue conference has taken place in Berlin, Germany. Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister, opened the conference with a reminder to countries with major economies to take responsibility for climate targets. She called on polluting countries to pay more to help poorer nations deal with climate change.

"I strongly urge those who can to join our effort, and particularly the strongest polluters of today, particularly looking at the G20. Because strong economies share strong responsibilities," she said.

The conference was an opportunity for discussing the agenda of the United Nations Climate Conference, COP29 which will take place in Baku in November. Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, spoke to Euronews about the importance of global co-operation in tackling climate issues saying, “It is our common task and we should spare no effort in order to contribute. Of course, each country, depending on its financial capability and depending on the agenda, should do its job, “ adding “It's not easy because the world is diverse. Every country has a lot of challenges in front of them.”

Many speakers voiced that last years’ COP28 in the UAE was a defining reference point for global consensus on climate ambition. The UAE Consensus provides a roadmap to meet the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement to keep 1.5°C as well as other sustainable benchmarks.

The COP Presidencies Troika is an initiative aimed at strengthening the continuity between COP28 (UAE), COP29 (Azerbaijan)and COP30 (Brazil) and hopes to push governments to make brave and ambitious decisions.

COP29 President Designate, Mukhtar Babayev said that his Presidency Plan is “to enhance ambition and enable action. This involves setting out clear plans to keep 1.5°C within reach and leave no one behind, while also putting in place the finance we need to deliver.” In addition, he told Euronews “It’s our call to fulfil the promises made before.”

One of the promises is for countries to transition away from fossil fuels. Elnur Sultanov, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Energy and CEO of COP29 says, “It's talking about transitioning away in energy systems, from fossil fuels in a just, equitable manner. And we are definitely supporting that. But again, usually these kinds of the entire structure of the international economic system is built on fossil fuels. We need alternative development models that don't use fossil fuels.” He says that technology and clever policies will be important and added, “we need to see these tested out models that really prove that this is possible. And that is cost effective, because really green transition is a development problem. You cannot do this at the expense of economic development. They have to go hand in hand. And we are working in that direction so that viable models could come out so that the entire world could imitate.”