DDMBA - The 29^th UNFCCC Report

by Ven. Chang Ji

The 29^th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 11 to 22 November 2024, is a pivotal opportunity to accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis. With global temperatures hitting record highs, and extreme weather events affecting people around the globe, COP29 will bring together leaders from governments, business and civil society to advance concrete solutions to the defining issue of our time.

A key focus of COP29 will be on finance, as trillions of dollars are required for countries to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect lives and livelihoods from the worsening impacts of climate change.

The conference will also be a key moment for countries to present their updated national climate action plans under the Paris agreement, which are due by early 2025. If done right, these plans will limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and double as investment plans advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

DDMBA held a side event in the Blue Zone along with co-organizers Global Peace Initiative of Women, Inner Trip Reiyukai International and Sustaining All Life bringing in speakers from India, UK, USA and Iran. Foster Regenerative Cultures Through Transformative Education for Children and Youth. The speakers pointed to the importance of connection to nature and connection to feelings as an important problem that should be addressed to support efforts to climate change adaptation. Chang Ji Fa Shi, representative of DDMBA, spoke about Protecting the Spiritual Environment and the importance of supporting external mitigation movement with internal transformation of mindsets. Our ability to really discern what needs to evolve and how to help things evolve is impeded by all of the conditioned ways in which we impose a sense of limitation and lack on reality. We have all these layers of assumptions, and biases, and defense mechanisms that distort our perception and make it hard to see things clearly. We have all this psychological complexity that makes it hard for us to positively contribute to and participate in the evolutionary process. When our narratives and assumptions are unquestioned, we end up weaving threads of the problem into the changes we want to make, so to exit the usual solution-templates, we must somehow see and question assumptions that we may not yet even be aware of.



Source: Emissions Gap Report 2024


According to a presentation made by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the 2024 edition of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report series, which tracks our progress in limiting global warming well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement, alarm bells have been sounded. Nations must close huge emissions gap in new climate pledges and deliver immediate action, or 1.5°C lost. Nations must collectively commit to cut 42 per cent off annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035 in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – and back this up with rapid action – or the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal will be gone within a few years. A failure to increase ambition in these new NDCs and start delivering immediately would put the world on course for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C over the course of this century. This would bring debilitating impacts to people, planet and economies. 

We can't wait any longer. Essentially, we would need global mobilization on a scale and pace never seen before – or at least not following a global conflict. Many will say this is impossible. But to focus solely on whether it is possible misses one crucial point: the transformation to net-zero economies must happen, and the sooner this global transformation begins the better. Every fraction of a degree avoided counts.