Open Access

Wolfgang Obergassel, Christof Arens, Christiane Beuermann, Victoria Brandemann, Carsten Elsner, Chris Höhne, Nicolas Kreibich, Hermann E. Ott, Juliane Schell, Max Schulze-Steinen

• This article reviews outcomes of the twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and of the sixth session of the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA6) in the areas of finance, mitigation, just transition, cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, adaptation, loss and damage, and gender. The conclusion of the first Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement at COP28 in 2023 had broken new ground in many respects, but had been missing one key element: the enhancement of means of implementation. COP29 in Baku/Azerbaijan had been billed as "finance COP". In addition, it was supposed to build further on the GST outcomes on mitigation and justThis article reviews outcomes of the twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and of the sixth session of the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA6) in the areas of finance, mitigation, just transition, cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, adaptation, loss and damage, and gender. The conclusion of the first Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement at COP28 in 2023 had broken new ground in many respects, but had been missing one key element: the enhancement of means of implementation. COP29 in Baku/Azerbaijan had been billed as "finance COP". In addition, it was supposed to build further on the GST outcomes on mitigation and just transition. However, the conference arguably failed on all counts. In view of those shortcomings, and many others over the past decades, discussions about a reform of the COP process and parallel tracks gained renewed momentum.…