COP29 Presidency launches initiative to address climate change, humanitarian needs

Baku : The COP29 Presidency on Friday launched the Baku Call on Climate Action for Peace, Relief, and Recovery (BCCAP), a milestone initiative aimed at addressing the urgent nexus of climate change, conflict, and humanitarian needs, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29.

This initiative responds to the growing recognition that the adverse effects of climate change, such as water scarcity, food insecurity, land degradation and human displacement, can act as catalysts for conflict and instability, especially in the most climate-vulnerable regions.

The Call was launched by Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov at the high-level panel, "Climate and Peace: Enabling Joint Action to Leave No One Behind", to inaugurate the COP29 Peace, Relief, and Recovery Day.

The event brought together ministers and governmental envoys from a wide range of countries across both the Global North and South to develop a strategy for preventing conflict-induced conflicts and scaling up support for climate and conflict-vulnerable nations with high humanitarian needs.

Through multiple rounds of consultations over the past six months, the COP29 Presidency has developed, in collaboration with partner co-lead countries of Egypt, Italy, Germany, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, and the UK, which has already endorsed the Baku Call, the concrete, solution-oriented responses that build upon climate and peace initiatives championed by previous COP Presidencies.

It has established the Baku Climate and Peace Action Hub as a coordination platform to deliver on pledges to mitigate challenges on peace and climate nexus.

The COP29 Presidency will host the Secretariat of the hub in Baku. The hub will drive results-oriented synergy and foster joint peace-sensitive climate action of ongoing peace and climate initiatives, namely the COP27 Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace (CRSP) Initiative, the COP28 Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery, and Peace (CRRP), Germany-led Climate for Peace Initiative (C4P), and the climate dimension of Italy’s Mattei Plan for Africa to meet needs of the climate and conflict vulnerable countries.

The Baku Call reiterates global pledges and introduces innovative recommendations addressing critical issues such as water scarcity and enhancing sustainable water management practices, food insecurity and promoting climate-resilient agricultural solutions, and land degradation and supporting land rehabilitation and ecosystem restoration.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said: "With a disproportionate impact on the most at-risk communities, particularly in developing, lower-income, climate-vulnerable, and conflict-affected states, the Baku Call emphasises the importance of peace-sensitive climate action."

"It also prioritises support for the most vulnerable groups, including women, children, and youth, who bear the brunt of these intersecting crises."

The development of the Baku Call has been a highly inclusive process, informed by consultations with a diverse range of international partners, think tanks, governments, UN agencies, development banks, civil society, and the private sector and represents an opportunity to collectively amplify commitments to peace-sensitive climate action, while scaling up support for the most vulnerable communities worldwide.