COP29: Leaders must commit to fair climate financing and fully phasing out fossil fuels

Leaders at COP29 must listen to demands for climate justice by putting human rights at the heart of all decision making and commit to massively scaling up needs-based climate financing and a full, fast, fair, and funded phase-out of fossil fuels across all sectors, said Amnesty International ahead of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan. “The global climate crisis represents the single greatest threat to humanity. The annual emissions report from the UN Environment Programme found that without significant changes, the world is on track for a catastrophic increase of 2.6 to 3.1°C this century. If we do not take bold, decisive and collective action today, tomorrow’s world will be increasingly unlivable. From droughts and wildfires to floods and supercharged storms, these devastating unnatural disasters have become far too often a regular feature of people’s lives the world over. They are bound to increase in scale, reach and intensity, ending far more lives, destroying livelihoods, and fueling unprecedented levels of famine and forced migration. It’s not too late to avert total climate breakdown, but we cannot waste another minute,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. “States must build on the COP28 decision and commit to a full, fast, fair and funded fossil fuel phaseout . This will require agreement on a vastly scaled-up climate finance target to help fund just transitions to zero-carbon economies in lower income states – at least one trillion USD per year. The current lack of progress towards agreement on this issue is shocking. One trillion USD may seem expensive, but the human rights and economic costs of maintaining the status quo are incalculable. The fate of humanity depends upon it.