By Bhavya George, Programme Coordinator, Climate Change

This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 29, was in Baku, Azerbaijan from Nov 11 to 22. The focus was on finance after last year’s historic agreement on establishing a Loss and Damage fund.

My travel started from New Delhi, where I met some known faces at the gate–this only continued to happen throughout my days at the conference.

I attended COP with two purposes. One to understand the negotiations and include voices from the field in the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC). Another purpose was to network and meet all the other Gender Just Climate Solution Awardees mentored by WECF (Women Engage for Common Future).

This was my third COP, where rather than only attending the second week, I attended the first week as well. Attending the first week helped me to be part of the Women and Gender Constituency’s strategy meeting on November 10th, just a few hours after landing in Baku. By being present at the strategy meeting, I was able to plan my participation in the rest of the conference.

As the Agriculture Working group of WGC needed more participants, I decided to follow their negotiations. I also got to deliver the text representing WGC as an observer. It was a very new experience. 

Along with agriculture, I also followed the Just Transition Working Group. I wasn’t nearly as involved as I was in the Agriculture Working Group, but I would listen to the team and catch up on their updates through morning caucus meetings and emails.

Along with the negotiations, I also engaged with the Paris Committee on Capacity-Building (PCCB) Hub to look through the side events and ensure that they included a gender lens.

Outside of the venue, we had half a day workshop organised by WECF for the awardees on advocacy tools. We also would have daily dinner meets with the team, which helped us to know more about each other’s work in our own regions.

A week passed by quite soon with lots of learning, reflections and way forwards.

Watch Bhavya participate in an interview with We Don’t Have Time: