Preparations for the 2024 and 2025 climate talks are taking place amidst a political push-back on climate action in some countries

 The United Arab Emirates (UAE), host of the previous COP28 climate summit, along with Azerbaijan and Brazil, the upcoming hosts of the next two U.N. climate summits, announced on 13 February their collaboration to advocate for more ambitious emissions-cutting targets. This alliance comes amid growing concerns over climate action setbacks in certain countries, despite the escalation of extreme weather events and the consistent breaking of temperature records almost every month.

The UAE’s COP28 presidency disclosed that the summit hosts would establish a three-way “troika” to prioritise the adoption of more ambitious CO2-cutting commitments before the deadline at the COP30 summit in Belem, Brazil, in 2025. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s president of last year’s negotiations, stressed the urgency, stating, “We cannot afford to lose momentum; we must do everything we can to keep 1.5°C within reach,” referring to the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global temperatures rise.

The primary objective for this year’s COP29 summit in November, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is to finalise a new global target for climate finance to support developing countries. However, attention is already shifting towards Brazil’s summit in 2025, viewed as the next significant milestone for global climate diplomacy. With nearly 200 countries mandated to submit updated national CO2-cutting commitments before COP30, the next round of climate targets is deemed crucial to preventing global warming from exceeding 1.5°C, a target increasingly slipping out of reach as global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

In a year marked by numerous elections, some politicians, including Republican front runner Donald Trump in the United States and far-right parties eyeing gains in the EU’s upcoming election, have opposed climate policies as they court voters. This political climate underscores the importance of concerted efforts to bolster climate action and address the pressing challenges of global warming.