Water for Climate and Finance: Key Takeaways from COP29 in Baku

CCB • November 29, 2024

COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, concluded on November 22. Often referred to as the "Finance COP," this conference also placed a strong emphasis on water issues. We’ve gathered the key highlights from COP29 that focus on the intersection of water and climate.

29 November 2024 - The climate crisis is most acutely affecting water resources. WMO’s State of Global Water Resources reports show that the water cycle is spinning out of control and becoming more erratic, unpredictable, and extreme.


CLIMATE & WATER


Climate change is expected to lead to more frequent incidents of water pollution, salinization, and eutrophication, driven by increased droughts, floods, sea level rise, and rising water temperatures in certain rivers and lakes. The Baltic Sea, with its relatively small water volume and slow exchange of water with the North Atlantic, is particularly vulnerable. These conditions amplify the impact of climate change, causing many processes and interactions to occur more rapidly than in other seas. To learn more about the effects of climate change in the Baltic Sea in the latest update of HELCOM Baltic Sea Climate Change Fact Sheet.


At COP29, the most significant and expected event has been the adoption of the Declaration on Water for Climate Action. The Declaration commits to applying comprehensive approaches to combating the causes and consequences of climate change for water basins, paving the way for increased regional and international cooperation. Nearly 50 countries joined the adoption of the Declaration, it was approved by prominent non-state actors, including WWF, Water.org & Water Equity, Stockholm International Water Institute and the Islamic Development Bank.


It also emphasizes the need to integrate water-related mitigation and adaptation measures into national climate policies, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). To support this, signatories will collaborate to enhance the generation of scientific knowledge on the causes and impacts of climate change on water resources and basins. This will include efforts to share data and develop new climate scenarios at the basin level.


To support the implementation of these actions Baku Dialogue on Water for Climate Action was launched with high-level representatives from the European Union, Finland, Gambia, Germany, Moldova, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This initiative will serve as a collaboration platform between COPs, promoting continuity and coherence in water-related climate actions. It will ensure a sustained focus on water and its connections to climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and desertification, with an emphasis on actions at the international, regional, river, and basin levels.


Commenting on the Water for Climate Action launch, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said: “Water is the link that flows between the climate, biodiversity and desertification crises. By enhancing collaboration between countries and between COPs, the Water for Climate Action initiative will allow us to act on all three fronts”.


From the point of view of water resources, COP29 is an important milestone, an official recognition at a high level that water resources are an integral part of the global climate agenda. The necessity of integrating water management and transboundary cooperation into national climate policy, such as Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans, is not something new, but obviously crucial for effective climate adaptation and mitigation. We will be able to see the first results of this process next year. Parties will provide updates to their own NDCs and NAPs by February 2025 so COP29 is an important moment in making the case for water’s role in these key documents.


CLIMATE & FINANCE


One of the main results of COP29 was the approval of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) - the target of $300 billion per year by 2035 annually by developed countries to combat climate change in developing countries. This result falls short of what developing countries would hope for at the end of a long negotiation process, and does not meet their real needs considering the scale of the observed impacts of global climate change and the speed of ongoing climate shifts. On the other hand, the call in the final document to jointly create conditions for increasing climate financing for developing countries from all sources to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 seems to leave the door open and maintains hope for a qualitatively higher level of ambition in this critical area. However, it also hints that large sums of money will not simply fall from the sky and that all stakeholders and countries will need to work hard to attract such funds and elevate climate finance to a new level.


OUTCOMES


Overall, climatologists and activists worldwide expressed dissatisfaction with the recent conference. They felt the issues facing Pacific island nations were not adequately addressed, the financial commitments were insufficient, and the outcomes of the conference were, in the words of Shailendra Yashwant, Senior Advisor at Climate Action Network South Asia: "not just a failure, but a betrayal" of developing countries.


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Article written by Anna Ushakova, CCB Maritime Working Area Leader

COP30 brings ocean and water to the center of climate policy

By CCB • December 5, 2025
In Belém, in the heart of the Amazon, the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference COP30 immediately set the bar high. In his opening speech, Brazilian President Lula da Silva stressed that climate change is no longer a "threat to the future", but a tragedy that the world is already experiencing here and now, and called on countries to accelerate actions rather than limit themselves to promises. However, as is often the case in COP meetings, the political reality turned out to be more complicated than ambitions. Negotiations were difficult: the countries could not agree on a clear and binding plan to phase out fossil fuels. It is important to note that the Global Action Plan has provided a platform for discussing the development of a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change. At the same time, COP30 has brought tangible progress in other areas: the countries agreed to triple the amount of adaptation funding for developing countries by 2035, strengthened the forest and ocean agenda, and expanded the range of practical initiatives under the Action Agenda . COP30 consolidated the trend: from "water at the center of the climate crisis" to a holistic ocean agenda closely related to energy, food, biodiversity and sustainable coastal development. From the COP29 Water Declaration to the COP30 Enhanced Ocean Water Program At COP29 in Baku, the Declaration on Water for Climate Action was adopted , with the aim to applying comprehensive approaches to combating the causes and consequences of climate change for water basins, emphasizing also the need to integrate water-related mitigation and adaptation measures into national climate policies, including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). COP30 did not reverse this logic, but expanded it towards the ocean and coasts. Both processes "aquatic" and "oceanic" are moving in the same direction: integration of water, coasts and ocean into the climate plans of countries; development of nature-based solutions; strengthening transboundary management of water and marine systems; recognizing adaptation as an equal part of climate policy, rather than an "adjunct" to emissions reduction. Task Force on Oceans and the Blue NDC Challenge The international Task Force on Oceans , led by Brazil and France, was officially presented at the high-level ministerial meeting "From Ambition to Implementation: Delivering on Ocean Commitments" on 18 November, integrating oceans into a global mechanism to accelerate the incorporation of marine solutions into national climate plans. The Blue Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Challenge encourages countries to set ocean protection targets when updating their NDCs. The goal is to transition the Blue NDC Challenge into an Implementation Task Force. Members of the Blue NDC Challenge, currently 17 countries, can adopt a broad set of actions aimed at the protection and sustainable use of the oceans.These measures include the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems, supported by tools such as marine spatial planning, integrated coastal zone management, and climate-aligned marine protected areas. Countries are also encouraged to support sustainable and climate-resilient fishing and aquaculture, ensuring ocean health and long-term food security. B razil has set a clear example: its updated NDC includes a separate chapter on the ocean and coastal zones. For the first time, the national climate plan (Plano Clima) until 2035 includes a thematic adaptation plan for these areas. Priorities include the completion of national Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) by 2030 and major programs for the conservation and restoration of mangroves and coral reefs (ProManguezal, ProCoral).

Pathway to Tox-Free Living: Policy and Action

By CCB • November 24, 2025
Leading scientists, consumer advocates and policymakers gathered on November, 18th in Brussels for the conference "From Evidence to Policy: Toward a Tox free Living Environment" . They warned that exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in homes and consumer products represents a silent but severe public health and economic crisis. New findings presented to over 65 participants by the EU Baltic Sea Interreg project NonHazCity3 , LIFE ChemBee and the ToxFree LIFE for All projects as well as revealed widespread contamination of European households by complex chemical mixtures of hormone system disrupting substances (so called endocrine disrupters – EDCs) that contribute to chronic disease and impose enormous health costs. According to the key note speaker Dr. Aleksandra Rutkowska, the home environment is a significant source of exposure to EDCs through indoor air, dust and daily contact with common products. Current research links such exposure to a shocking amount of lifestyle diseases including 22 cancer outcomes, 18 metabolic disorder outcomes and 17 cardiovascular disease outcomes. Scientists also stressed that the crisis spans generations. EDCs trigger epigenetic changes that not only affect today’s population but also future children and even grandchildren. Other effects include reproduction disorders. Over the last decade, 150 million babies were born preterm, and evidence shows that reducing the use of plastics by half could cut the risk of preterm birth by half as well.