Media coverage

On Friday 22 Nov at COP29, Bill Hare told AP "no one's ever totally happy with the text. But the differences are so big they’ll have to be bridged before you have any chance of agreement here.”

Just like last year’s initial proposal, which was soundly rejected, this plan is “empty” on what climate analysts call “mitigation” or efforts to reduce emissions from or completely get off coal, oil and natural gas, Bill Hare told PBS.

"The timelines for these disasters are getting shorter," Jattansingh said. "You have a cycle of rebuilding, reconstruction, long-term recovery and so on — all for another event to happen."

“Colombia is doing the right thing in a way by saying we need to move away from fossil fuels,” said Bill Hare. But the whole ecosystem of the international financial community is not backing Colombia up, he said

“We’re beginning to see some of those negative feedback loops where the climate crisis itself is impacting on the energy system and making it harder to reduce emissions,” Neil Grant told Vox.

"We know that peaking is the start of the journey," says Neil Grant. "But peaking emissions would be a real sign of human agency. If we could say: look, we can turn the corner, that would highlight to me that we do have power and so it would be a hopeful thing for me."

A Trump administration that rolls back the climate policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and carries out the conservative blueprint Project 2025, would add 0.04°C to warming projections, Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga said. That’s not much, but it could be more if other nations use it as an excuse to do less, she said.

“We are clearly failing to bend the curve,” said Sofia Gonzales-Zuñiga. “As the world edges closer to these dangerous climate thresholds, the need for immediate, stronger action to reverse this trend becomes ever more urgent.”

Gas emissions are projected to increase by 2.4%, which Bill Hare describes as "really frustrating and concerning." "What's happening there is that gas is displacing renewable energy in places where renewables could be taken up," he said.

Electric vehicles, data centres, manufacturing and hot temperatures boosting electricity demand to power air conditioning are all reasons why fossil fuel emissions have continued to rise despite the massive build-out of renewables in 2024, says Neil Grant. “Most people have been caught a bit surprised by the level of electricity demand this year”, he says.