On Tuesday, November 5, the Oxford Sustainable Finance Student Society (OSFSS) hosted a dynamic panel discussion titled “COP-portunity Knocks: Biodiversity, Climate & the Future of Finance”. As we approach COP29, the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, which begins November 11, seasoned COP participants shared their insights on the evolution of the COP process and what to anticipate from this year’s event. The panel also delved into reflections from the recent Biodiversity COP16, which took place in Colombia in October.
Meet The Panelists
The panel of COP experts was facilitated by OSFSS Treasurer Jordan Calverley, who recently completed her MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise & the Environment and is currently a 1+1 MBA student at the Saïd Business School (SBS). Panelists included:
Serena Bashal recently completed her MSc in Environmental Change and Management, focusing on UN climate policy. Heading to COP29 as her eighth conference, Serena has extensive experience with the UN as a former UK youth delegate and organizer for high-level youth engagement in policy dialogues. In 2019, she made history as the youngest elected representative for global youth in UN Climate Change processes.
Melissa Guckenberg is currently an MBA student at SBS, following her MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the School of Geography and the Environment. With a background in Deloitte’s product management and sustainability consulting, Melissa was integral to the launch of their public sector Nature practice. She holds dual degrees in Economics and International Affairs from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Valery Salas Flores is a Peruvian industrial engineer and advocate with over a decade of leadership in global climate action. Now pursuing an MSc in Sustainability at Oxford, she has been pivotal in engaging over 10,000 young people in climate initiatives and representing Peru at multiple COPs. Her extensive work includes advising on climate strategies for UN agencies such as UNICEF and UNFPA, and consulting for McKinsey on COP engagements.
Dr. Omnia El Omrani is a medical doctor who served as the first Youth Envoy for the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs at COP27 and later as Health Envoy at COP28. Currently a Climate and Health Policy Fellow at Imperial College London and an MPP candidate at the Blavatnik School of Government, Dr. El Omrani co-leads the Equity Group of the Lancet Commission on Prevention of Viral Spillover and contributes to several global health commissions.
Many Pathways to COP
The panel began by exploring each speaker’s journey to participating in COP conferences:
Serena Bashal first took part in COP as a member of the UK Youth Delegation to the conference. Ever since, she has been engaged in numerous initiatives aimed at increasing young people’s involvement in UN climate processes.
Valery Salas Flores first took part in COP24 in 2018 as part of the Peruvian delegation, and has continued to contribute to the COP process through coordinating the YOUNGO initiative, the official children and youth constituency of the UNFCCC.
Omnia El Omrani first took part in COP24 as a representative of an international association of medical students, with a particular focus on climate change’s impact on health. After being selected for the role of the Youth Envoy at COP27, and then Health Envoy at COP28, she decided to terminate her medical residency and committed to working full time on health policy and climate.
Melissa Guckenberger’s pathway to the Biodiversity COP was unique and differed from the rest of the panelists, as she first got involved with COP while working for a consulting company. She helped her employer plan and run the events hosted as part of the last Biodiversity COP15 in 2022. This year she participated in the conference as a member of the University of Oxford’s delegation.
Setting the Stage of COP29
The panelists shared their expectations and the critical issues on the table for COP29. For Valery Salas Flores, ensuring that UN climate processes take into account human rights and the societal impact of decarbonization is key. Currently there is no common understanding of the meaning of the often invoked “just transition.” The details of arrangements for sharing the financial burden of climate change mitigation measures between developed and developing countries remain contentious and will be subject to further debate at this year’s conference. We should also expect intense negotiations of Article 6 of UNFCCC, which regulates countries' cooperation in fulfilling their nationally defined contributions, including the rules on controversial global carbon markets. Many of its provisions remain ‘in brackets’ - i.e. provisional - as parties failed to agree on their wording at COP28.
Omnia El Omrani highlighted that there is no globally agreed financing goal for climate change adaptation measures. Its adaptation will be negotiated at the upcoming conference. She also looks forward to several countries – including the UK and Brazil - unveiling their revised nationally defined contributions. NDCs are updated every five years by the parties in a process independent of the COP conference itself. However, big public announcements from climate leaders at COP could set the benchmark for NDCs of other states.
Serena Bashal talked about how different the experience of COP can be, depending on one’s position and duties at the conference. She is looking forward to being able to explore the many stimulating events and discussions that COP has to offer with a slightly less packed schedule compared to previous years.
Financial Ambitions: “The Finance COP”
COP29 has been dubbed the “finance COP.” That is because one – and arguably the most important – issue on which negotiators need to reach understanding during this year’s conference is the new target for climate finance (formally known as the “new collective quantified goal”). The former target of $100bn per year until 2020 was adopted in 2009. However, the Paris Agreement obliges parties to revise this goal by 2025, “taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.”
Valery Salas Flores, explained that $1tn has been suggested as the appropriate next target by some experts, but that this is unlikely to pass – the agreed target will likely fall somewhere between this number and the previous $100bn goal. She also pointed out that the details of how this money will be raised and distributed – the division between developing and developed countries, the share of debt finance and non-repayable aid – is of equal importance to the numerical target itself.
Serena Bashal pointed out that the collective quantified goal is not the only financial mechanism set up under the UN climate conference. At COP28, parties had agreed to set up the Loss and Damage Fund, with the objective of providing finance for the developing countries most affected by climate change related disasters such as sea level rises and floods. COP29 will see further negotiation about how to operationalize this fund.
Biodiversity Financing at COP16
Next, Melissa Guckenberger provided an overview of the finance discussions at the Biodiversity COP16. Similar to the climate conference, financing targets play a key role in negotiations. The UN currently estimates the biodiversity funding gap at $700bn and seeks to raise at least $200bn through COP resource mobilization. Yet, so far donor countries have pledged only $30bn with the actual raised financing being $400mn. Ultimately, negotiators at COP16 ran out of time to agree on a common financing target. One important mechanism on which parties managed to agree however, was the so-called “nature dividend” - a fund into which corporations benefiting from sequencing genetic information of plants and animals would pay, with the proceeds used to protect biodiversity. Yet, to the disappointment of many, the agreed framework does not oblige participating states to make such payments mandatory – they remain at the discretion of companies.
Bridging Climate and Biodiversity Agendas
The panel concluded by examining the relationship between climate and biodiversity and the UN’s twin conventions relating to each issue, as well as the twin COP processes that follow them. All panelists agreed that these issues are intertwined. Both Valery Salas Flores and Melissa Guckenberger pointed out that the parallel UN conventions and COPs for climate and biodiversity might lead to multiplication of efforts and siloing of the discourse, and that there is space for streamlining the processes to avoid that. However, as Omnia El Omrani observed, due to the complexity of each field, dedicated processes and a fine degree of specialization are needed.
This panel shed light on the multifaceted nature of international climate negotiations and the intersections of policy, finance, and youth engagement—elements that promise to shape the discourse at COP29 and beyond.
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