Audrey Wagner

Nations agreed to a "permanent arrangement” to provide biodiversity finance to developing nations, “future-proofing” the flow of funds past 2030. Decades in the making + in this aid-cutting climate, it's a big deal. w/ @orladwyer_ @daisydunnesci @GAViglione @YanineQuiroz 🐞

NEW: UK has published its biodiversity pledge (called an NBSAP), as countries gather in Rome for the second part of #COP16 gov.uk/government/pub…

THREAD: New UK govt contract with Drax biomass power plant * 4-yr contract 2027-2031 * £113/MWh (2012 prices – £155 in today's money) * Output cap of 6TWh (<2% of UK supplies, cf recent yrs 12-15TWh) * CfD cost ~£500m/yr * 100% of fuel must be "sustainable", up from 70% 1/5

Excited to be joining the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery as an Oxford Martin School Visiting Fellow. Looking forward to working with @ymalhi & team on biodiversity science & policy. Implementing the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has never been more urgent.

Starting off the new year with exciting news! 🎉 Happy to share our new open access paper: 'Unpacking the politics of #NatureBasedSolutions governance: Making space for transformative change'. sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @NatureRecovery @LeverhulmeTrust @NatureBasedSols @ecioxford

I'm so proud of the Carbon Brief #COP29 team for finishing our big summary of the talks It's an EPIC 20,000 words of top-notch, plain-english reporting… –NCQG –Stocktake –Article6 –China +Much more …delivered in record time after a brutal fortnight of sleep deprivation! carbonbrief.org/cop29-key-outc…

NEW – COP29: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Baku ✍️ @aruna_sekhar @daisydunnesci @orladwyer_ @DrSimEvans @Josh_Gabbatiss @MollyLempriere @AyeshaTandon @GAViglione @Wanyuan_Song #COP29 ➡️ buff.ly/3VaAmuP

My statement on the outcome of #COP29: While the agreement reached at COP29 avoids immediate failure, it is far from a success. On the key issues like climate finance and the transition away from fossil fuels, this is — yet again — the bare minimum. We cannot continue to rely on last-minute half measures. Leaders today shirk their responsibility by focusing on long-term, aspirational goals that extend far beyond their own terms in office. To meet the challenge of our time, we need real action at the scale of months and years, not decades and quarter-centuries. This experience in Baku illuminates deeper flaws in the COP process, including the outsized influence of fossil fuel interests that has hobbled this process since its inception. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been particularly obstructive. Putting the future of humanity at severe risk in order to make more money is truly disgraceful behavior. Reforming this process so that the polluters are not in effective control must be a priority. On climate finance, our primary task in the coming years must be to not only fulfill and build upon the financial commitments agreed to at COP29, but to unleash even larger flows of affordable and fair private capital for developing countries. Ultimately, coming out of COP29, we must transform disappointment into determination. We can solve the climate crisis. Whether we do so in time to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement will depend on what comes next.

Furious intervention from India after NCQG is adopted at #COP29 "gavelling and trying to ignore parties from speaking does not behove the UNFCCC system…India does not accept the goal proposal in its present form"

The proposed $250 billion in the latest COP29 text us a 30% REDUCTION in real terms from the $100 billion promised in 2009. Inflation not only makes life ever more expensive for people across the world, but it also allows rich countries to hide the real value of their distant promises. The reality of the 250 billion commitment for 2035 is that not only is it a fifth of the 1.3 trillion that developing countries need, it’s a 30% REDUCTION from the $100bn that was promised in 2009 in real terms (when inflation of 5% is taken into account). So rich countries promised a wholly insufficient amount in 2009, failed to fulfil that promise for 15 years, and now are kicking the can down the road by delaying real targets for another 10 years, all while DECREASING the real value of their initial commitment by 30% by the time we get there. This truly is the great escape from responsibility for the rich. $100 billion in 2009 couldn’t even buy the global south the coffins we would need for the climate trajectory the rich countries had locked us into. $250 billion in 2035 will buy us even less.

Nations have been discussing a new climate finance text at COP29 that includes a scaled-up figure of $300bn per year by 2035. This is up from the $250bn that was offered in the text yesterday, but it's still much lower than the numbers developed countries have pushed for...

BREAKING: LDCs and AOSIS suspend #COP29 negotiations on #NCQG #ClimateFinance goal. CAN members @Rebecca_Thissen @BrandoncWu and @MohAdow speak to an intensely interested media scrum. No deal is better than a bad deal. #PayUp

@rebecca_thissen @brandoncwu @mohadow @MohAdow explaining why LDCs and AOSIS walked out: "Text on the table is not good enough to discuss an #NCQG #ClimateFinance goal." #COP29 #PayUp

Current status at #COP29 is that two big developing country groups have walked out, says Panama's negotiator

🌎🦥Where are we at with linking climate change and biodiversity loss? #COP16 biodiversity summit ended a week before #COP29 climate summit, although you'd be forgiven for forgetting that as it's barely been mentioned here in Baku But there are some updates worth noting...

G20 DECLARATION 🤝"strong commitment to multilateralism", #COP29 💵backs climate finance "billions to trillions"; few specifics 🛢️no repeat of "transition away from fossil fuels" 🌅supports 3x renewables, 2x efficiency ✋refs "unilateral [climate] measures" Full text: gov.br/planalto/pt-br… 1/6

I co-authored my first article for The Conversation @ConversationUK with @NatureBasedSols Director @NathalieSeddon on climate-biodiversity synergies at COP16!

1/5. 📢The New Collective Quantified Goal on #ClimateFinance (#NCQG) must deliver at least US$ 6.88 trillion a year 💰 for #Mitigation 🚫🏭, #Adaptation🏗️🏝️ and #LossAndDamage 🔥⛈️, with at least US$ 2.8 trillion provided as grants. Here is how this breaks down 🧮 🎯. 🧵

Here's Brazil's new NDC, targeting emissions 59-67% below 2005 levels by 2035 unfccc.int/sites/default/…

Doubling down on fossil fuels is absurd. The clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, and no government can stop it. Leaders at #COP29 can and must ensure it is fair and fast enough to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.