“The UAE Consensus at COP28 marked a significant achievement and laid a strong foundation for the work ahead,” said Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, COP29 President-Designate, as he addressed the Global Renewables Summit held on the margins of the high-level week of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

“To deliver on its calls on energy transitions in a just and orderly manner, we must rapidly scale up the renewable energy systems of the future. The COP29 Action Agenda has placed a strong emphasis on energy and we have developed a series of initiatives designed to accelerate the implementation of renewable energy transition, based on the decisions that have been taken in Dubai. The Green Energy Zones and Corridors Declaration aims to promote investment, stimulate economic growth, and foster regional cooperation in renewable energy development. The Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge sets an ambitious target to increase global energy storage capacity to 1,500 (one thousand five hundred) gigawatts by 2030 - six times above 2022 levels,” the minister emphasized.

“It also commits to scaling up investments in grids and to add or upgrade more than 80 million kilometers by 2040. This will be essential to ensure adequate storage capacity and the stability of grids, both of which are key enablers for the effective storage and reliable transmission of renewable energy,” the COP29 President-Designate noted.

“The Hydrogen Declaration then seeks to unlock the potential of a global market for clean hydrogen and its byproducts. These initiatives aim to take some of the next logical steps in the implementation of the UAE Consensus. These initiatives also support the COP29 Presidency's wider plan to enhance ambition and enable action. To enhance ambition, we are calling on all parties to submit 1.5-aligned Nationally Determined Contributions before February 2025 deadline,” Mukhtar Babayev added.

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