Talking Shop: So What Happened at COP29?

Transcript

Mark Hertsgaard: Welcome to another Talking Shop with Covering Climate Now, I’m Mark Hertsgaard. I’m the executive director and the co-founder of Covering Climate Now, as well as the environment correspondent for the Nation Magazine. And our subject today, what happened at COP29? But first, for those of you who may not know, Covering Climate Now is a global collaboration of 500 plus news outlets that reach a total audience of billions of people. We’re organized by journalists for journalists to help all of us do a better job of covering the defining story of our time. You can go to our website coveringclimatenow.org, where you’ll see a list of our partners. You can apply to join us. You can sign up for our weekly newsletters. All of our services are free of charge.

At today’s Talking Shop, we’ll be discussing not only what happened at COP29, but also what that pretends for how we as journalists cover the climate story going forward, including with an eye toward COP30, which Brazil will host in November 2025. As for COP29, to the surprise of no one, but the future anguish of many, this summit did not yield the kind of agreement that science says is necessary to avert climate catastrophe. Progress was so stymied by fossil fuel interests that a group of climate luminaries, including Christiana Figueres, a key architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement, released a letter calling the COP process, “No longer fit for purpose.” Looking ahead to COP30, the letter called on the UN to limit fossil fuel company involvement and exclude countries from hosting COPs who do not support the phase-out transition away from fossil energy. This is going to be an intriguing storyline for all of us as journalists to explore in the months ahead, especially given that the United States will soon be governed by a president who promises the exact opposite of a fossil-fueled phase-out.

Other key takeaways from COP29 include a $300 billion a year climate finance deal and outrage from developing countries that rich countries aren’t paying more than that, much more than that, given that most analyses estimate the real cost of shifting to clean energy and adapting to climate impacts are closer to $1 trillion a year. One bright spot that didn’t get as much coverage as it may be deserved was a unilateral pledge by Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, to stop burning coal by 2040. However, no agreement was reached on the larger imperative of implementing COP28’s pledge for a global transition away from fossil fuels.

So we’ve got lots to chew on here today. Let’s get started. As usual, in the first half hour, I’ll be posing questions to our panel of journalists who are drawn from around the world, one from the Philippines, one from Argentina, one from the UK. In the second half hour, of course, we broaden the conversation and invite your questions from our fellow journalists. Please submit your questions in the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. I’ll read them out for the panelists to answer. Please include your name and the name of your news outlet. We’re taking questions only from working journalists, please.

Now allow me to introduce our stellar panel, starting with Fiona Harvey. She’s the environment editor for The Guardian. She’s reported extensively on climate and environmental issues from all over the world. And, personally, I recall seeing her at a lot of COPs over the years myself. So welcome to Fiona Harvey. Next is Fermin Koop. He is the Latin American managing editor at Dialogue Earth and he is a trainer for environmental reporters at the Earth Journalism Network. He’s covered COPs for a decade and he’s based in Buenos Aires. And last but certainly not least, Biena Magbitang. She is the regional director for Climate Tracker Asia from the Philippines with extensive reporting throughout Southeast Asia.

Now, if you’ll please join me in giving a warm virtual welcome to all of our panelists. Thank you so much, all three of you for being here. This is a really important service to the profession of climate journalism and we appreciate your time. I’m going to start with you, Fiona Harvey. As I mentioned, you’ve covered a lot of previous COPs. Did anything about COP29 surprise you? For example, the open letter that I mentioned earlier, calling the COP process no longer fit for purpose, you reported on that. Was that a surprise to you to see that kind of a letter?

Fiona Harvey: Well, we didn’t know the letter was coming, so it was a surprise in that sense. But I went back through some of my cuts to look for how long people have been calling for COP reform and I was writing about people calling for COP reform in 2007, 2008. So these calls have been going on for a long time. The thing about COP reform is that the question you have to answer is what reforms would you make and how would you manage it? So on. So it’s quite a big issue there.

In terms of the other issues at COP29, I don’t think it was a massive surprise that the developed countries went away promising $300 billion a year. I think that was broadly in line with expectations, especially post the US election, which of course was just a few days before the start of COP29. People need to look at the bigger picture as well. The bigger number that’s on the table is $1.3 trillion a year, which the developed countries have promised to facilitate. So that’s a target that has to be met as well and taken seriously. A lot of that money could come from the private sector and actually it’s good that a lot of that money should come from the private sector. The private sector needs to be involved, the private sector needs to bring all of its might to bear on the global shift to a low carbon economy. We can’t do this without them. So that actually is a very important part of the agreement that was reached.

But COP itself was terrible in many ways. It felt really chaotic at times. It felt like the presidency, Azerbaijan didn’t really have control. It felt like no one was really quite sure which side the presidency was on, in fact, in many ways. And it felt like there was a lot of rancor, a lot of disagreements, a lot of acrimony. Although, actually, in the negotiating rooms themselves there was less than there was in the corridors, I’m told. So it was always going to be a really, really difficult COP, because when you talk about money, that’s a whole different ballgame in many countries from talking about emissions, and it involves entirely different sections of most countries’ governments. It involves the treasuries, who normally don’t come to COPs, and it involves environment ministries in trying to get to grips with financial issues, which normally they don’t really have to.

So it’s logistically and managerially really difficult. And, of course, once you start talking about money, things get real and countries really are defensive about that. So it’s not surprising it was such difficult, such a dreadful COP in many ways. And it could have been worse. It could have fallen apart. There were many points at which it looked as if it could fall apart. And what really counts now is trying to make sure that the goals are met and indeed there is the possibility of trying to ratchet upward some of those targets in the future. So we shouldn’t forget that.

Mark Hertsgaard: A lot to dig into there. Let me follow up with something that bridges those two points. You mentioned that sometimes it was unclear whether the host country really wanted this summit to succeed, and of course that was part of the point of that open letter signed by Cristiana Figueres, and other signatories included the former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, of course.

Let me just ask a follow-up question on that. You mentioned you’ve been writing about calls for reform since 2008, and as I understand it, there have been two main issues there. One is the issue that was raised in this letter about fossil fuel interests and how many corporate executives are there, and you’ve got a fossil fuel state and Azerbaijan as the host. And, of course, at COP28, another fossil fuel state was hosting. But a second issue was the idea that every decision at a COP follows the United Nations rules, which means, essentially, consensus decision making. Everybody has to agree, which in turn means one country can block it.

Fiona Harvey: No.

Mark Hertsgaard: Correct me on that.

Fiona Harvey: No, that’s not true. No, consensus is not the same as unanimity. So it’s not true that all countries have to agree and one country can block it. The host, the presidency can decide that there is consensus even if there are still some countries holding out. That’s been true at many COPS. It was true at Paris.

Mark Hertsgaard: That’s good to know.

Fiona Harvey: The Paris Agreement was gaveled through with a few countries raising their flags to object, but the presidency, the French at that time, was confident that they had consensus by almost everyone in the hall. So that’s an important point. It’s not unanimity.

Mark Hertsgaard: One last question before I turn to our colleagues here. What do you expect will come of that letter? Of course, there’s been calls before, but that’s pretty strong people calling for it. Christiana Figueres, who of course put together that 2015 Paris Agreement. What will happen? Who makes those reforms? How would the process be reformed to, for example, lessen the involvement of fossil fuel interest?

Fiona Harvey: Well, with great difficulty is the answer, because the UNFCCC was signed in 1992, and if you tried to make a treaty like that now, you wouldn’t succeed. At the moment, as you mentioned earlier, we’re going to see Donald Trump take over in the United States in January, and for four years we will have dreadful COPs as a result, because the US will not involve itself in a constructive manner. Now, of course, we’ve been there before in the previous Trump presidency, but of course this is a problem with a deadline. So this issue gets more and more urgent. We couldn’t really afford a four-year hiatus last time. We certainly can’t afford it now.

So we need to move forward in spite of that. And how do you move forward in spite of that, without drawing on the treaty that we already have? If you try to make big changes to the UNFCCC, you would need every country to be on board, and what are the chances of that? I can’t see that happening. So I think the people who want to see reform need to come up with a plan and say, “This is the reform that you need to put in place and this is how you would achieve it.” Otherwise, it’s well-meaning and we can all take the points that they’re making and we can all agree with those points, that this process is incredibly torturous and difficult, but if you don’t have a clear plan for how you would achieve the changes that you want to see, then it’s pointless, isn’t it?

Mark Hertsgaard: Yeah, it’s just weird. So that’s a storyline, speaking to my fellow journalists here, that’s a storyline we’re all going to want to keep our eyes on. Is there actually going to be a plan brought forth for this? Let me turn now to our next panelist, Fermin Koop. You’re from Argentina, Fermin, and of course your country also made a bit of news at this COP. Your relatively new president, Javier Milei, he’s an ally of Donald Trump and he signaled that he too might withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement. So my question for you is, was that just a political stunt designed to get publicity or is that a serious policy announcement? Where do things stand currently and what would it mean for Argentina, but also for the world as a whole, if Argentina does eventually pull out of the Paris Agreement?

Fermin Koop: Thanks for the question, Mark. And thanks for the invite as well. Great to be here. So just as a little bit of background, we are at the one-year anniversary this week of the Javier Milei administration in Argentina. And so far this year we have seen a significant backlash on environmental policies on a local level and on an abroad level. So on a local level, we used to have an environment ministry. Now we have an environment under secretariat. So much lower rank than before. Around 30,000 state workers were laid off in Argentina since he took office, including many people working on what used to be the environment ministry. And a lot of local policies have been dismantled. For example, we used to have a mitigation and adaptation plan that was approved before his time in office, and now we find ourselves on a full stop on any national level adaptation and mitigation policies.

Action does continue on a sub-national level, similar to what happened in the US when Trump was in office. But on a national level, the scenario is quite disturbing. And this comes alongside with open statements of Milei saying that climate change is not happening, it’s part of a natural cycle. You can actually read official documents from the government that say climate change is not a thing. Also, Milei questioning the 2030 agenda overall, so much broader than climate per se, with some really negative voting in the UN of Argentina and human rights, gender, environment and so on. So the government, when the government took office, this was COP28, it was in the middle of COP. There were a lot of rumors back then of Argentina actually backtracking Paris and so on. And out of the blue there was an envoy from Milei that came to COP28 and said, “We are going to stay here. We are going to be an active member,” and so on and so on. But a year has passed, and the scenario at home here, it’s quite bleak.

In the middle of week one, as you well were saying, there was an order by the foreign office in Argentina to withdraw the entire delegation from Argentina, which, to be fair, isn’t a massive delegation, it’s not like Brazil or the US. But every one, I think it was on the Wednesday or the first week, didn’t go into the venue. They all were sent back to Argentina. And this also had a backlash on civil society, because just to clarify something, when people go to the COPs, they get a certain accreditation, and there’s a whole bunch of people that go to the COPs with accreditation that’s managed by the foreign office of the country. And all those people were blocked the entry to the COP, because Argentina withdrew as well. So it was quite a difficult moment for NGOs from Argentina as well. You might have seen this on the news too.

I think it was, as you were saying before, it was part of a stunt just to make some noise on the international arena. While COP was happening, we also had the G20 summit in Brazil. Milei did go there and he ended up voting for a communique from the G20 that includes mentions to the 2030 agendas and to climate change. In many of the cases, due to pressure from Lula, Xi Jinping, and so on. So the agenda of Milei, it’s not moving forward, but that might change now with Trump taking office. Milei and Trump are really close allies. Milei even visited Trump in the US in Florida a couple of months ago. And if Trump actually decides to leave from the Paris Agreement, as he has been promising over the last few months, we might be seeing some movement in Argentina as well.

So far, the official answer is we are not going out from Paris, even after what happened at COP29. There were a few statements coming in from the foreign minister saying that we are still in, which is good news, but still the scenario might change quite significantly when Trump takes office. And also thinking on the crucial year that we are entering in and every country is already or should be working on their NDCs. Brazil presented theirs at COP29. Argentina did say openly that they are working and will present an NDC, which was surprising in a way, but it’s good news as well. But what’s concerning is that, that NDC might just be a rewrite of the old version that we have now. That’s what mainly climate experts are saying.

Mark Hertsgaard: Let me intervene for just a moment there, Fermin-

Fermin Koop: Yeah, go ahead.

Mark Hertsgaard: … and remind those of us who are maybe new to this, just tell us what the NDC is.

Fermin Koop: Definitely. Thanks for that. So the NDC is the National Determined Contribution, which, in a nutshell, it’s a climate plan. I rarely use NDCs for my articles, to be honest, because not that many people are engaged with that. But it’s just one of the many, many acronyms related to climate science and coding at COP. Every country now is into their third round of the NDCs. The NDCs started with the Paris Agreement and now countries have to submit their new climate plans, which include both adaptation and mitigation. But, to be fair, these are voluntary plans and there’s not a formal procedure in terms of how these plans should look like, what a country should submit in their plan. Every country can submit really whatever they want.

On a formal basis, the Paris Agreement says that whenever they present a new NDC, the new NDC has to be more ambitious. But we’ve seen in the past that this hasn’t proven to be the case. There’s been many countries, when they submitted their second version of the NDCs, they were weaker than the first ones. But this is definitely one of the key stories that we will be looking for from now till next year. Countries need to file their new NDCs by February. This is very unlikely, because most of them are very delayed. More likely will be June, July, based on what people are saying. But this is a crucial moment, because now we are coming out from COP29, which the finance target didn’t deliver to what developing countries were asking for. And now we are going to see, okay, so well how can we pull off a new and more ambitious NDCs without the finance, which is the same discussions that we had at COP16.

Taking on a tangent for a moment, just weeks before COP29, the COP16 on biodiversity, which happens every two years instead of every year, clashed as well and was a big failure over the lack of funding as well. They are going to do a secondary meeting in a few months next year, because they couldn’t agree on finance. And countries were supposed to deliver on their biodiversity plans at the moment of COP16, and they didn’t do that, claiming that they didn’t have the finance. So that’s a really important thing to keep an eye on as we enter into 2025 in terms of what our country’s delivering on and having a look on that and how the financial tensions will be coming in as part of the NDC process.

Mark Hertsgaard: So this is a really important point for all of us as journalists, whatever country you are reporting in, is remember that, as we say at Covering Climate Now, we’re paid by our employers, usually not paid very much, but we’re paid by our employers, but we work for the public. And our role in civil society is illustrated by this episode where it is our job as journalists to go to the government in your country and say, “Well, where is your NDC? Why isn’t it going to be here in February?” And to prod them and to then, when the NDC, which is, again, we’re just using the acronym here, but when you right or broadcast, you want to be calling it the climate plan, when is the climate plan coming?

And then, once it’s announced, it’s also our job to analyze it and to tell the public what’s in it and to hold the governments accountable for what it does, for what that climate plan does, and what it doesn’t do. One more quick question to you from me before I turn to Biena, which is, just speak for a moment, if you would, about Argentina, what it would mean if the government does pull out of Paris. Just in terms of Argentina’s, I’m frankly unaware how big are its emissions and so forth. It’s not as big as Brazil, for example, but its diplomatic sway, its economic sway. And you mentioned that Milei was pressured at the G20 meeting by Chinese President Xi and others. So talk a little bit about that.

Fermin Koop: Definitely. So just as a background, Argentina’s emissions are 8% of all the global emissions, but if you take it per capita, it’s actually higher and the emissions are growing, mainly because of the fossil fuel industry and also the deforestation that’s coming out from land use. Argentina is hoping to be a powerhouse in terms of fossil fuels. We have the second-largest shale gas and the fourth-largest shale oil reservoirs in the world, mainly in Patagonia, in the south of Argentina. And there are big plans to even export natural gas through CNL. There’s facilities now on the works to set up ports to export CNL to Europe or even China. So the emissions could go up.

And if we look at the inventory of emissions, which is the way that countries track their emissions, the current one versus the previous one, emissions on land use, which is mainly deforestation, agriculture and so on, have been going up. So that’s definitely an issue. Argentina isn’t a massive political player at COPs, to be honest. It used to be considered an environmental leader at COP processes. We hosted two COPs in the ’90s and one of the individuals that was the main responsible of the Kyoto Protocol was an Argentine diplomat. So this was a previous agreement to the Paris Agreement, just as background.

So I think the image now, it’s quite concerning on a global sphere in terms of the role that Argentina is taking, but the decisions that Argentina is taking on and the stance that Argentina is taking on, on a global level on climate policy or environment even, it will be more damaging to Argentina itself than to the global community. This was the finance COP, as Fiona was saying. It was the COP to be at for a developing country, because you wanted to put pressure and you wanted to send some signals to potential donors to fund projects in your country. Imagine yourself, if you are a donor, and if you hear the Argentinian president dismissing climate science and withdrawing their delegation in the first week. What does that mean for potential funding coming into Argentina? So I think the decision is more harming to Argentina itself rather than to the global community.

But just going back for a moment as well, if we think when the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement, there were lots of talks back then I remember of the possibility of other countries following the same decision, other countries also withdrawing from Paris. That didn’t happen. But I think the world now, it’s on a much different geopolitical configuration. As Fiona was saying, it would be impossible to create the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement now because of the many tensions around the world. And I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of, not just Argentina, maybe other countries as well, considering a similar decision with the Paris Agreement, if we do get the ball started with Trump and then Argentina and maybe others.

I think the scenario now with extreme right governments in Europe and in Argentina as well and in other Latin American countries, I think it’s still a possibility amid the thing that you were mentioning well with Fiona, the possibility of the UN system changing somehow. We’ve seen lots of discussion on that at COP29, even at the G20, whether it’s effective or not, whether the NDCs, the climate plans are effective or not. So I think we are entering into quite critical years in terms of the entire process as well.

Mark Hertsgaard: Thanks very much. That’s Fermin Koop. He is with Dialogue Earth. Earlier, we heard from Fiona Harvey of The Guardian. Now I’m going to turn to our third panelist today and with a huge thank you to Biena Magbitang, because she is in the Philippines where it is well past midnight. So thank you very much for staying up with all of us. Let me start by making sure that everyone understands what your outlet is. Climate Tracker, it’s an independent scientific project that measures government climate action against the Paris Agreement aim of keeping temperatures to two degrees above pre-industrial, preferably 1.5.

On that fundamental point, Biena, it certainly looks from a distance that COP29 fell pretty short, not just because of the NDC, the climate plan’s shortcomings that we’ve already discussed, but because of the finance. As Fiona Harvey was saying and countries were saying at COP29, developing countries are saying this, “How are we supposed to transition to clean energy and adapt to the climate impacts if you don’t give us the money to do it?” So can you speak a little bit about that? Did that look to you on the ground there in Baku, on the finance stuff, give us a little bit of a flavor of that and what it was like to cover that and what that means going forward as we look to 2025 and COP30.

Biena Magbitang: I actually hate to say this, but we always get mixed up with Climate Action Tracker and our organization is Climate Tracker. But basically we do the same thing. But we’re not a think tank. We’re an organization by journalists for journalists, like Covering Climate Now. We train journalists, we bring them to COPs, and we basically track negotiators. We always get mixed up with Climate Action Tracker, because of the name, and they always get mixed up with us. So every COP is like a reunion for us. So we always talk to each other like, “Who actually went to you and said that you’re actually from Climate Tracker? Who actually went to you and said that you’re actually from Climate Action Tracker?” That’s why these questions come up to us really, really every year.

Mark Hertsgaard: I profoundly beg your pardon. I am humiliated and embarrassed and I apologize. Let’s move forward. It’s nice to hear that your organization, like Covering Climate Now, is organized by journalists for journalists. So let’s cut to the chase and talk about what it looked like, that finance deal there at Baku.

Biena Magbitang: I think for someone from the Philippines covering COP29 while the Philippines is actually being battered by six storms back-to-back in just four weeks, around the time that COP is happening, there are four super typhoons battering the Philippines, it was like a mental anguish I really can’t describe. On one hand you’re waiting on the final number of the $1 billion pledge on your screen, and then on the other hand you’re actually refreshing news from home, watching real people suffer. I’m going to take off my journalist hat for a bit by saying that it’s not just frustrating, but it’s really infuriating, because how can the world debate climate finance while people’s homes, livelihoods, and futures are being washed away in real time. Covering COP has been a bit of exhausting and a bit of traumatic for someone who has actually been through the disasters.

If you remember, we’ve been a poster boy of COPs because of Typhoon Haiyan. We’ve been battered. And during the time of COP, whenever I go there, I always ask people, “What should I actually write about? What are the things that will actually resonate to my audience?” Because I used to be a TV reporter and I was reporting for the biggest and largest media company in the Philippines, and I wanted it to actually be a story for the masses. But they always tell me, “Just report on the disaster, because there will definitely be a disaster while you’re at COP.” Because during those time we actually experienced 20 typhoons in a year. That’s why we named them after alphabets, because that’s when we counted, we named them alphabetically.

And for me it’s not just talking about the numbers. I think, aside from actually decoding what’s happening and going at it and decoding what’s being negotiated inside the rooms, for me, the way that I carry after I filed my story is not just chasing the deadline, but wondering if anyone will actually care about the story I filed. Because most of the time, when we’re actually at COPs, we’re just tooting our own horn. I don’t know if this is me being pessimistic, but the people that read my articles are just coming from the same bubble. And for me, how do we actually translate that to the people who actually needed the information most? I’ve been a business reporter, so it’s actually easy for me to crunch down the numbers and think of how it will translate, but the problem really is how to make it a story that people will care about. It actually stumped me to actually write something that I know people will read, something that I know people will open up their minds and hold our leaders accountable. Because-

Mark Hertsgaard: Let’s talk a little more about that, Biena. You say you were a TV reporter for the biggest news outlet in the Philippines. How does the climate story in general, and especially COPs, how do they play in the Philippine media? Is that something that, now that you’re not at that TV outlet any longer, do they give it much attention? Does the public follow it? Is it news that seems to matter to people there? Or are the journalists not quite able yet to solve the puzzle that you just posed about how do we make our coverage meaningful to the audience?

Biena Magbitang: Yeah. Truth be told, I actually resigned from my job only because I wanted to focus on climate more. Because I know that if I actually stayed in the newsroom, I won’t be able to write more climate stories. Because climate is not entirely a beat in the Philippines, for Southeast Asia even. We rarely talk about climate in the human aspect of it. Most of the time, it’s actually written in business frame and climate just comes up of the conversation when it’s actually framed in the disaster lens. So you get dead bodies, and then damage, and then the disaster, and maybe they’ll talk about climate for one story. One problem is actually lack of funding, because you live in an archipelago, it’s actually hard to travel from the main city here in Manila to the far-flung areas, because we are living in more than 7,500 islands.

So how can you actually also produce a well-written climate story when you’re actually asked to turn three to four stories a day? So you can see that only freelancers can actually write a well-written climate story, because they actually can produce that story, they have the time. They might get the grants that will actually give them the money to travel. And it’s really hard to actually push it. When I was starting to push for Climate Tracker Asia in the Philippines, my thinking back then was to actually set up climate beats in all of our newsrooms here. So I actually talked to newsroom leaders.

I am a newsroom manager myself, I was a newsroom manager, but it wasn’t really a priority. Because if you can recall, the company that I used to work for, ABS-CBN, was actually shut down by the president during the pandemic. And there’s actually a shrinking democracy space. A lot of really good journalists are now transitioning to independent journalism, because they can’t report the things… I want to be blunt about this. There’s actually self-centership right now happening in newsrooms, not just in the Philippines, but in Southeast Asia, because we’re ruled by authoritarian governments. So how will you be able to actually hold truth power if your hands are tied? You cannot do it, because you might lose your job.

Mark Hertsgaard: That is an issue that a lot of us as journalists are going to be confronting in the year ahead. That’s Biena Magbitang. She is with Climate Tracker, not to be confused with Climate Action Tracker. I’m going to switch now to some questions from our fellow journalists on the call here. Keep them coming, by the way, as we go. But I’m going to start with one from my longtime colleague, Antonia Juhasz. She is a freelancer who writes mainly for Rolling Stone Magazine, which is a Covering Climate Now partner. Let me just add though, before we walk away from Biena’s point there, a couple of things.

One is that Covering Climate Now is planning to be leaning into the climate and democracy connection in 2025. And in the face of the kind of repressive governments that Biena just mentioned in the Philippines and that Donald Trump at least promises to bring here in the United States, we’re going to be leaning into that. And as far as the South Pacific Asian region specifically, Covering Climate Now is also working, we can talk offline about this, Biena, we’re working with a number of newsrooms in the ASEAN region to try and help everybody increase their climate coverage despite the obstacles.

Okay, so now to Antonia Juhasz’s question. She says, “How was COP30 discussed at COP29? Was it intentional to push off discussing implementation with the fossil fuel phase out until COP30 under the assumption that there might be a more favorable opportunity at COP30? And is there optimism for COP30 because it’s hosted by Brazil, even though Trump will be running the US?” So, basically, how was COP30 discussed there? Was it intentional to put off implementation? Fiona Harvey of The Guardian, could we start with you please?

Fiona Harvey: It wasn’t intentional to put off the transition away from fossil fuels to COP30. There were efforts from the start to try and get that enshrined in the outcome from COP29, but they were thwarted by various parties. Some would argue with the assistance of the presidency, which didn’t really seem very keen to facilitate having the discussion around the transition away from fossil fuels and indeed a strengthening of it. So, yes, that has to come back. It’s really difficult when parties try to unpick at one COP progress that was made at the previous COP. That’s one of the many flaws in the process, that that’s possible. Although, on the other hand, the process also makes it possible for things to be strengthened from one year to another. So how do you lose one without losing the other is a difficult question.

So that was not a great outcome in terms of the transition away from fossil fuels, to have to put that off to COP30, because Brazil already has enough on its plate during the NDCs that we heard about earlier. And it actually would’ve been a great assistance to them if we’d managed to get the fossil fuel phase out, get some progress on that at COP30, which Brazil could have then built upon instead of having to go back to zero at COP30 and try and then get back to where we were at COP28, effectively.

COP30 was definitely very much on everyone’s minds at COP29. Brazil made absolutely sure of that. They did a fantastic job. But I think there’s a strong feeling that the deadline for NDCs is supposed to be in February. There’s a strong feeling that a lot of countries will not make that, for one reason or another. And a lot of them might wait until COP30 itself to unveil their NDCs. Now that would be a bad thing, because that would make the discussions at COP30 much harder. So really it would be for Brazil and its allies to try and get people to bring forward those NDCs as early as possible this year to try and smooth the path to COP30.

Mark Hertsgaard: Again, folks, that’s something that we as journalists, that’s our role in civil society, is to be holding governments accountable and pushing them on this. Let me switch now to a question from a colleague of ours in Japan. And, again, thank you for staying up so late here. Bless you for that. This is from the president of the news division at Nippon TV, Ken Isaji. Excuse me, Ken, if I’m mispronouncing your name. Here’s his question, “What negotiations were there behind the scenes at the COP29 Climate Summit?” Behind the scenes. So I guess referring to the idea that we as journalists in particular, we don’t always know what’s going on, but sometimes we do hear about what’s going on behind the scenes. Fermin Koop, do you want to jump on that? Or the others of you, who are also welcome to comment. But Fermin, why don’t you begin?

Fermin Koop: Definitely. Thanks, Mark. That’s a really good point, and as a background, there is so many things that happen in the corridors of the COPs. We have the official negotiations, in many cases, closed doors, in which reporters, usually we can’t get in. We may get information of the negotiations from civil society or off the record comments from the negotiators, maybe a WhatsApp message coming in. But aside from the actual negotiations, there’s many, many business agreements being done at COP every year. We got, sadly, used to the number of fossil fuel representatives increasing at COPs by the year, which is over 2,000, if I remember correctly, but it’s quite big. And this shows that they want to influence, they want to be part of the negotiations.

We are now at year three of a COP that has been hosted in a country that relies somehow on fossil fuels either for exports or for its own economy. And this has been questioned significantly by civil society and has led to, over the past three years, including on COP29 for the host government, the presidency of the COP, doing behind closed doors, agreements with fossil fuel companies, which in many cases were reported by The Guardian, by Fiona and her co-workers there. But stories that basically bring to light agreements in which the presidency wants to sell more exports of fossil fuels, for example. But it’s not limited to that. We see many kinds of agreements, for example, in the case of Latin America related to land use, with the agriculture sector, and the same with green hydrogen, so-called green hydrogen or blue hydrogen even. And this is something that doesn’t always get as much attention compared to the rest, but it’s equally important. We have to track that, we have to follow.

It’s not the easiest story, because you need the contacts, you need the sources, but it’s something that does happen there. Probably, I’m guessing Fiona can also comment on this, but when I started with COPs 10 years back, it’s definitely changed so much over the years. I always think it now was some sort of Olympic Games of Climate or Davos of climate, that kind of thing. Because you get so many things happening in there. That’s why the big media outlets always can make a strategy around it, send a group of people in there to cover it. Because if you’re just yourself, like in my case, you got to pick your battles and you have to cover what you can or what’s more relevant to your media outlet. Because you can follow the negotiations, you can follow the country positions, you can follow the side events, you can follow these closed-door deals. There’s so many things, but it’s part of your own editorial priorities, part of your own preparation of covering a COP.

One of the things that I always highlight when we do trainings with reporters is that you need to prepare months ahead before even considering covering a COP, either remotely or on site, because it’s definitely fine and possible covering remotely as well. I’ll close it there, but definitely it’s with the idea of think thinking of COP as a crash course to climate for every reporter that might be interested on this that’s hearing us out today. And don’t think it like a climate beat. Any reporter might be interested on covering a COP. It’s something that you can cover with so many angles. You don’t necessarily need to be an environmental reporter like the three of us here. You can be whatever kind of reporter you are and cover Cop anyways.

Mark Hertsgaard: That’s an excellent point. And Earth Journalism Network gives trainings. They’re very good sources as you prepare for COP30. They’re doing trainings. Covering Climate Now also does trainings. We have resource briefings and background stuff that you can read. I’m going to go to Biena in a minute, but as you prepare for these things, I’m struck where you say about they’re like the Olympics. And as a reporter, yeah, you need to prepare months in advance and you better get plenty of sleep before you get there, because you’re not going to be sleeping very much once you’re there. Really quick follow up before I go to Biena. You talk about all these business deals. Do you ever get the temptation to just walk up to somebody from Exxon and say, “Excuse me, with all due respect, what the hell are you doing here?”

Fermin Koop: Definitely. You are definitely there. I remember for example, a podcast by-

Mark Hertsgaard: Do you do that? Have you done that?

Fermin Koop: Yeah, I’ve done that and with country delegates as well. You basically raise your hand in the press conferences or wherever you can, wherever you bump into people, and you directly asked them. It’s part of our job, it’s part of what we do. For example, I remember covering COPs, probably my fifth or sixth COP. I was the only Argentine reporter there and I asked some uncomfortable questions to the government and they just blocked me and stopped talking to me. I’ve spoken with many reporters that have dealt with the same thing at COPs. Because especially from developing countries, you’re usually just yourself or maybe a couple of reporters from your home country. Being on a COP, it’s quite tricky. It’s expensive. It’s difficult logistically speaking. So not every reporter is lucky enough to be there.

I consider myself thankful for having had the chance to be there for 10 years now. But it’s a privilege to be there and I feel responsible of doing a good job, and that means asking the difficult questions on as many spaces that you can do that, which goes from the public press conference that’s also streamed and people can watch it, to running into people in the hallway, to asking for an interview. I remember there was a podcast by Bloomberg at COP29 in which they did an interview, I think it was with the head of [inaudible 00:48:45], I think it was a fossil fuel company, in which they said it would be a mistake for Trump to leave the Paris Agreement. That made a lot of noise during COP.

And being at the COP, which is also probably important to mention, mean it’s much easier getting a hold of people that might be high-level people that are difficult to access to, because you are there for the two weeks with them and you have a direct access, because they are on the same place you are, which is a big tent in which you are walking the same hallways as them, so you bump into them. It’s just natural. So you might as well take that on your advantage and use that as a tool for a report. It’s quite a unique situation.

Mark Hertsgaard: We often say that at Covering Climate Now, “If you can afford to get to a COP, go.” Because you may see the president of France walking by and you can have a quick, or you can… I remember once at, what was it, COP26 in Glasgow, seeing John Kerry and Qi Xinhua, the Chinese negotiator. There they were, 10 feet away from you. So quickly now. Biena, I want to turn to you here for a question. This is again about finance. And I’m sorry, I’m going to mispronounce the name, Tanvi Deshpande. She’s an Indian journalist who works for the outlet India Spend.

She asks, “Was the developed nation’s demand to expand the donor base for climate finance…” That is to say it’s not just going to come from government money, public money, that’s $300 billion that we’re going to pledge per year, but we’re going to also pledge a total of $1.3 trillion per year. In other words, we’re going to mobilize $1 trillion in private finance in addition to the $300 billion. Her question is, was that tactic, was that a stalling tactic? And if we take it on its face that it’s genuine, what is the process for how the rich country governments would actually facilitate that private investment? Was that something that was talked about or was it just left for COP30?

Biena Magbitang: I’m going to take a hot take in this in saying that it is a yes and a no. A stalling tactic, a yes and a no. Yes, because the demand can actually really delay progress. Developed nations have fallen short on their $100 billion annual goal and now face pressure to actually meet a larger $300 billion goal target by 2035. And expanding the donor base can actually conveniently shift part of their responsibility to others and it actually creates time-consuming debates. But my hot take is also no, because the global financial landscape has actually already changed. Emerging economies now play a much larger role in emissions and economic power, raising valid arguments for actually broader participation. But I don’t want to undercut myself in saying… We still need to mobilize funds for vulnerable countries. I don’t want to divert the focus from the core commitment made by developed nations to actually mobilize those funds as per the common but differentiated responsibilities under the Paris Agreement.

I am not really that privy on the negotiation terms, but for me, I think clear criteria would actually need to define who qualifies as a donor country. Like what is the GDP size, emissions contributions, historical responsibilities. I know that emerging economies would actually argue for fairness as many still face significant poverty and developmental challenges, but we also have to go back to what we’ve talked about a while ago in amending frameworks, because the current climate finance commitment stemmed from the Paris Agreement and earlier UNFCCC decisions, which differentiate developed and developing countries. So expanding the base, for me, actually might require to revisit and renegotiate key decisions which could actually maybe fracture the delicate trust between countries, because we know that this is actually an issue. COP is always an issue of multilateralism. As you’ve asked a while ago, they always need to talk and have unilateral decisions.

So hypothetically, for me, emerging donors might contribute through a south-south cooperation, as they wanted to, as voluntary contributions rather than binding agreements. And this is actually an approach already acknowledged in the agreements in the backlogs on the COP. But we really need to think about also how to process this, because such a change would actually take years of negotiations and likely starting with a formal proposal at COP followed by working group discussions and maybe culminating in a new financial architecture by hopefully COP30 or COP31, or later. It might be really risky. Wishing to expand the donor base is actually delaying urgent action and deepening mistrust and shifting the focus from the immediate responsibilities of the developed nations to meet their existing commitments.

Mark Hertsgaard: Let me stop you there, because we’re getting close to the end of the hour here. I’m going to ask each of you, since we only have four minutes to go, I’m going to ask each of you the same question. I’ll start with you, Fiona Harvey, of The Guardian. Is there a story that you felt, either at COP29 or in particular going forward from COP29, is there a story that needs more media attention? Just thinking about our colleagues here around the world who are covering the climate story, if there’s one story that you would urge them to be looking into. We’ve already talked about the importance of vetting and pushing governments on their climate plans, so I’m not looking for that one. We’ve covered that ground. But is there a particular area? And if you could suggest something along those lines. I’m going to ask each of you and then we’ll close out. Fiona Harvey, please.

Fiona Harvey: Well, NDCs is the big story for this year, but we’ve covered that. In terms of what came out of COP29 that people need to keep focusing on, one is the geopolitics. How is that going to change things for COP30 and is that going to make things more difficult to get things like the transition away from fossil fuels back on the table at COP30 and so on? The other is looking at climate finance. We’re talking about very big numbers here. We’re talking about $300 billion. We’re talking about getting to $1.3 trillion. One of the ways of getting to $1.3 trillion is to increase the kind of revenues that can come from taxing high carbon activities. So what are governments doing to push forward with that agenda is a really important question.

And the other is, what is happening to climate finance? Is it being well spent? Is it going to the places where it’s needed most? Is it being spent most efficiently? Because we can do a lot with this climate finance, but only if it’s doing the things that it’s needed to do. And I think that journalists all around the world can keep a really close eye on that and see how we’re actually progressing in focusing on climate finance.

Mark Hertsgaard: Accountability journalism at its best. Fermin Koop, what’s your suggestion?

Fermin Koop: Just two quick things. The energy transition definitely will keep on being on top of the agenda, and should be, especially with COP30. Brazil is quite uncomfortable speaking about fossil fuels and all the energy transition, because of their current plans to keep increasing fossil fuel exports. So keep an eye on those stories coming in. And also, probably even more important, is the overall role of adaptation. I think it’s still very much under-reported. We should be seeing more stories on what’s happening on the ground. And projects that are being taking place by countries, what’s going wrong, what’s going well? This is more difficult, because it takes more time for reporters to find those stories, to convince editors to allow them to take time on going on the ground, finding the stories. But these, I think, are the most relevant stories, that we need to see more stories on adaptation.

Mark Hertsgaard: Very good. And Biena Magbitang, we’ll close with you. What is the story that you want us to look at going forward?

Biena Magbitang: I’ll go back to what Fermin said a while ago. Every journalist right now should be a climate journalist. I know it’s a bold statement, but let’s be clear, climate change is not a niche topic anymore. It’s everywhere. It shapes our politics, it actually disrupts economies. It worsens health crisis, determines whether or not people will eat tomorrow. Climate change is not the one beat anymore. It’s actually a thread that ties every story together. So if you cover governance, you’re covering climate. If you cover business, you’re actually covering climate. Even culture, sports, lifestyle reporting are starting to intersect with this crisis. So this isn’t about being a climate reporter anymore, this is about being a good reporter, a good journalist, about holding power to account, about serving the public, about telling the most important story of our generation.

Mark Hertsgaard: That is music to our ears here at Covering Climate Now. We’ve been saying for years that climate change is a story for every beat and that all journalists in the world in the 21st century are going to be climate journalists, they just don’t know it yet. We’re here at Covering Climate Now to help you, especially if you’re just getting started, to get up to speed on climate reporting. We’ve got a lot of different resources. I urge you to sign up for our weekly newsletter, the Climate Beat, which will keep you on the cutting edge of what’s going on in climate journalism. And also our colleagues at the Earth Journalism Network, like them, we do trainings for journalists. So if your newsroom is interested, please get in touch.

And with that, we’re closing a minute too late, but I can’t end without thanking from the bottom of my heart these three superb colleagues from the UK, from the Philippines, from Argentina. Fiona Harvey of The Guardian, Fermin Koop at Dialogue Earth, and Biena Magbitang at Climate Tracker. Thank you all so much. And Biena, especially thanks to you for staying up so late. And with that, on behalf of everyone here at Covering Climate Now, I’m Mark Hertsgaard, wishing you a very pleasant day.