COP29 was the 29th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

It served as a crucial platform for negotiations between governments, international organisations, and nongovernmental organisations, with the goal of increasing global action on climate change.

Beforehand, this Conference was seen as particularly important, needing to accelerate the course of action on climate change, raise ambitions to reduce the impact of key drivers of environmental degradation, and avoid regression.

COP29’s key priority was to secure delivery of existing commitments, particularly through increased finance mechanisms. COP30 in 2025 is expected to be especially important, so COP29 had additional pressure to set the groundwork for next year’s pivotal summit.

The response to COP29 has been critical, with most commentary highlighting concerns about the pace of action, the extent to which promises are likely to be delivered, or the potential for climate injustice.

One of the key outcomes of COP29 was an agreement around the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), which is intended to be a crucial funding mechanism for climate finance over the coming years.

This briefing sets out the details of what was agreed at COP29, the implications of the summit for environmental science, and how COP29 fits into the wider context of climate action on an international and national level.