In a curiously organic way, a COP (Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) also works like this, as a chaotic yet seamless gathering of voices, interests and perspectives.

The endless summit corridors are packed with almost 60,000 participants, each navigating their way to uncertain outcomes at predetermined destinations: a negotiating table, a roundtable discussion or a profound conversation on the future of the climate. In this global microcosm, where governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations and academics converge, the interplay of interests is never stable, yet the wheels of the system remain constantly in motion.

My watch (and feet) can attest to the sheer scale of this gathering. During my time here I have been clocking more than 25,000 steps per day, roughly half a marathon, in my efforts to keep up with the rushing, incessantly conversing human tides.

Renewable price competitiveness isn’t enough

It is easy to point fingers at the more than 1,700 representatives from the oil and gas sectors attending COP29, yet their role in the energy transition is absolutely crucial. After COP28, even giants like ExxonMobil and Shell acknowledged that their future depends on diversifying their portfolios and transitioning to more sustainable business models. The current market is not, however, designed to make clean energy as profitable as oil and gas – complex systemic issues present roadblocks to a competitive transition.

The cost of solar energy has plummeted by 88% since 2010, and onshore wind by 68%. While this has helped to foster key industries such as electric vehicles and solar panels, clean energy is still far from being self-sufficient. Its success depends on a much more complex interplay between industry, governments and infrastructure.

In Spain, for instance, renewables account for 61.5% of installed capacity, with 78,968 megawatts (MW) of production, yet the stark reality is that there are 130 GW of renewable projects waiting to be connected to an electricity grid that is not ready to handle them.

Outdated infrastructure and slow bureaucratic processes are creating a bottleneck that prevents clean energy from being monetized, undermining its profitability and slowing its uptake. The complexities don’t stop there: further progress is also sorely needed in energy storage and data management, as well as in building optimized distribution networks.

The strategic necessity of climate negotiations

There is a paradoxical element to the climate struggle. As we move toward decarbonization, some renewable projects are having a highly detrimental impact on the environment, affecting precisely one of the other major global challenges: the recovery of biodiversity.

The Maestrazgo Cluster in Castellón, Spain, which envisages the installation of more than 125 wind turbines in Natura 2000 protected areas, is a clear example of this conflict. Local resistance, often framed as a NIMBY (not in my backyard) cause, is not only an aesthetic or territorial issue; it also houses deeper concerns about the preservation of unique ecosystems that could be lost forever.

As industries grapple with being competitive, the stakes are even higher for countries themselves. China and India are heading the technological race, so falling behind could lead to economic disaster. This is the main reason why figures like ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods are encouraging Donald Trump to join the climate negotiations – not out of altruism, but as a strategic necessity.

The energy transition requires more than just investment in renewables; it also means designing a system that can combine efficient grids, streamlined processes, stable public policies, conservation efforts and the needs of local communities. Ignoring any of these elements will not only further delay the transition; it will also expose us to fresh environmental and social crises. There are no easy solutions to these complex problems.

The role of carbon-credit trading

We are still waiting for the magic “commitment number” – the figure that developed countries decide to allocate to developing nations to fund their climate transition.

Why is this so important? Because many of these countries lack the resources to implement renewable-energy projects and adapt their infrastructures to reduce climate change. However, this funding is not just a matter of charity. It is also a way to ensure that all countries, regardless of their resources, can contribute to the fight against climate change.

In this sense, Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement represents a step toward a more orderly system by setting out a global framework for carbon-credit trading, under UN oversight. It aims to prevent double counting and fraud, as well as to restore confidence in a market that fell to $723 million in 2023 after multiple scandals.

Under this system, countries will be able to trade carbon credits produced by projects anywhere in the world, generating revenue to fund their own transitions. It replaces the former Clean Development Mechanism established under the Kyoto Protocol and seeks to establish clear rules to deter fraud and double emission counting.

Channelling the chaos of COP29

COP29 offers a clear lesson: tension and complexity are inherent to the climate challenge. Much like entropy itself, the energy transition is a constantly shifting system with opposing forces that need to be balanced.

Solving this puzzle demands more than just funds and technological breakthroughs. It requires bold leadership, international cooperation and the ability to navigate a system where tensions – decarbonization versus conservation, efficiency versus climate justice – have to be carefully managed and balanced.

Energy is the driving force behind this process, not only in the physical sense, but also in the political and social realms. The question is whether we can channel COP29’s chaos into a more sustainable and orderly future. Entropy may be a challenge, but it is also an opportunity, a reminder that there is room to build something extraordinary, even within disorder.

Isabela del Alcázar is the chief purpose and sustainability officer at IE University.

This story first appeared in The Conversation; it has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Read the original article here.

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With little to no power to enforce compliance, Stiell has responsibility without authority. In two years as the UN’s executive secretary for climate change, he has pushed for action at two COP conferences in oil-producing countries (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) while seeing the number of fossil-firm lobbyists in attendance quadruple. And he’s about to do it again at COP29 in Azerbaijan. He has learned not just to argue for change, but to paint vivid pictures of the costly dangers we now face – and the safer, more just world we could build for a fraction of that cost.

In mid-July, Stiell stood in a roofless home on Carriacou, his home island, surveying the damage from Hurricane Beryl. “I and my community are experiencing the devastation that has become all too familiar to hundreds of millions,” he said in a UN video. “Beryl is yet more painful proof: every year, fossil-fuel-driven climate costs are an economic wrecking ball hitting billions of households and small businesses.”

If no action is taken to slow climate change, a German government-backed report released in April says the costs will total US$38 trillion a year through 2050. “The same report,” Stiell noted, “says climate action will cost less than a sixth of that.”

With degrees in business and engineering, eight years with Finnish-based Nokia, and business development experience with a Silicon Valley AI start-up, Stiell moves easily between the public and private sectors. He’s also led the fight for a multibillion-dollar loss and damage fund for hard-hit developing countries, to be paid for by affluent industrial nations. With Canada and other G20 nations dragging their feet, the fund was finally established – if not yet funded – at COP28 in Dubai last December.

Now Stiell says the world has just two years left to agree on actions to achieve the Paris goals. To save COP29 this month in Baku, he’s been arm-twisting for a “quantum leap” in climate financing, including non-loan programs to help struggling nations cut emissions without drowning in debt. On the bright side, says Stiell, “Bold new national climate plans will be a jobs jackpot and economic springboard.”

Rick Spence is a business writer, speaker and consultant in Toronto specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. He is also a senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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Accelerate electrification

Electric vehicles and heat pumps are booming technologies that will help provide nearly one-fifth of the emission reductions by 2030. EVs should account for two-thirds of new car sales, while heat pump sales are already tracking ahead of the 20% annual growth rate needed through 2030 in some markets.

Slash methane emissions

The IEA calls this “one of the least-cost opportunities to limit global warming in the near term.” The energy sector needs to curb its methane emissions by 75% by 2030, which should cost it roughly US$75 billion, the equivalent of just 2% of the oil and gas industry’s net income in 2022 alone.

Double the annual rate of energy efficiency

Achieving this by 2030 will save the equivalent of all oil consumption in road transportation today. Besides more energy-conserving electric motors and air conditioners, countries need to drive the switch to clean cooking-fuel solutions as well as the more efficient use of energy and materials.

Triple renewable-energy capacity

This means getting global renewable capacity to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030. Authorities should speed up the permitting process for renewables such as solar and wind, extend and modernize electricity grids, tackle supply chain bottlenecks, and ensure that variable renewables are securely integrated.

Boost global investments

The world is forecast to invest a record US$1.8 trillion in clean energy in 2023. It’s a strong showing, but that needs to nearly triple by the early 2030s. Getting there hinges on mobilizing $100 billion in climate finance support for emerging and developing economies.

Put the brakes on new oil, gas or coal projects

The IEA suggests that fossil fuel demand must drop by more than 25% by 2030, and 80% by 2050, if we’re to meet net-zero. “Therefore there will not be a need for new investments in oil and gas fields or . . . coalmines,” said the IEA’s Fatih Birol. “This age of seemingly relentless growth is set to come to an end this decade.”

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The Covering Climate Now campaign, launching September 16, was co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation with the aim of strengthening the media’s focus on the climate emergency facing us all. Corporate Knights is one of several Canadian media outlets to join the campaign. That means we’ve committed to running a week’s worth of climate coverage in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23. It’s one of a number of editorial commitments Corporate Knights has made to bring the climate crisis to the fore.

In May of this year, the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. That month, Corporate Knights updated its editorial policy as well. Although the term climate change may still be used, we’re now encouraging our writers to use terms such as “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and even “climate chaos.”

The time has come to call this crisis what it is. The term “climate change” was initially whipped up in the early 2000s by renowned Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz as a term less likely to raise public concern. As the Guardian noted, “In 2002, Luntz wrote a memo to [President] Bush urging him and the rest of his party to use the term ‘climate change’ instead of ‘global warming.’ Climate change sounded ‘less frightening,’ he pointed out, ‘like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.’” The rebranding stuck.

Then one December night in 2017, Luntz had to evacuate his Los Angeles home as wildfires ripped through southern California. “I opened the curtains to my bedroom and there it was, less than a mile away. Flames lighting the nighttime sky,” said Lutz in his testimony to a congressional hearing on action this summer. “The courageous firefighters of Los Angeles saved my home, but others aren’t so lucky. Rising sea levels, melting ice caps, tornadoes and hurricanes are more ferocious than ever.”

He’s now lobbying for decisive climate action. During a July congressional hearing entitled “The Right Thing To Do: Conservatives for Climate Action,” Lutz said, “as someone who polls and presents to both Republican and Democratic leaders, I know — we all know — that climate change has become a partisan issue.” Lutz had some decent advice for bridging the divide. Instead of focusing on the consequences of inaction, he said, “What the American people really want to know are the benefits to our health, our safety and our economy if we take action now…Telling them how they will personally benefit is a much more effective call to action.”

Those calls to action are growing louder. We’re realizing the world isn’t prepared for even the 2 degrees Celsius rise that the Paris Climate Agreement is trying to stave off. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  (IPCC) reported that to keep global temperatures below a 1.5C rise this century, carbon dioxide emissions will have to be slashed by 45% by 2030. That gives us ten years to dramatically shift towards a thriving new green economy.

Corporate Knights is committed to drawing important climate solutions into the spotlight. But to achieve that 2030 goal, leaders from around the world have been clear that the next 18 months are critical. As Prince Charles told the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers recently, “I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival.”

The next opportunity to firm up global action is at the special climate summit called by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York on September 23. Our government and business leaders have to demonstrate that they’re serious about climate action and we’ll be watching closely to see that they do. The clock is ticking.

Join us on our website at Corporateknights.com and follow the #CoveringClimateNow hashtag to support the hundreds of other media outlets in 32 countries uniting to throw a global spotlight on the climate emergency over the next week and beyond. Help us share these stories on social media to sound the global alarm and reinforce that this crisis can be solved if we join forces to act now.

Adria Vasil is the managing digital editor at Corporate Knights and the bestselling author of the Ecoholic book series.

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