One of President Trump’s first actions this past week—and also in his first term—was to announce the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement. It is a step that is both misinformed and misguided. But how much difference will it make? Here’s what you need to know.

1. Significance of the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement was adopted by 197 countries in December 2015 and has been the underpinning of international climate action for nearly a decade. The goals and strategies it sets out are critically important to maintaining a stable climate, which is the foundation of successful societies and economies. The Parties to the Paris Agreement are legally obliged to submit national climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years. However, the content and level of ambition of those NDCs are (as the framing “nationally determined” makes clear) up to the Party itself. 

2. Immediate legal implications

The Paris Agreement stipulates that any nation’s withdrawal takes effect one year after an official notice has been submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.  In the case of the United States, the earliest effective date of official withdrawal is, therefore, sometime in January 2026. After that, the country will not be bound by its obligations under the Paris Agreement. Those include the submission of NDCs every five years, accounting of progress toward commitments, the submission of biennial transparency reports, and the general obligation to provide climate finance. The United States will also lose, in particular, its right to vote on decisions within the governing body of the Paris Agreement, to nominate members to institutions serving the Paris Agreement, and to participate in emission trading under the Paris Agreement. However, as the United States submitted a new NDC and a biennial transparency report in December 2024, it is currently in compliance with the key obligations under the Paris Agreement.

3. What withdrawal from the Paris Agreement doesn’t do

The executive order of January 21, 2025 does not withdraw the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1992 treaty that established the international climate negotiation process. The language of the executive order indicates that this is deliberate—the US will retain its right to vote in the Conference of Parties, as well as its reporting obligations under the UNFCCC. This is possibly due to the fact that a withdrawal from the UNFCCC, a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1992,  requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. It is also notable that no action has been taken to withdraw the NDC submitted by the Biden Administration in December 2024.

4. The policy impact

The United States’ withdrawal makes maintaining—let alone enhancing—the ambition of emission reduction efforts across the world significantly more difficult. When a major emitter “free-rides,” it de-motivates ambition by others. However, although the U.S. has the second-highest GHG emissions in the world, and has always been a key player in global climate collaboration, it is important to bear in mind that 194 other countries representing approximately 90% of global emissions have not withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. 

The executive order is targeted at stopping any U.S. climate finance contributions. This will mean that the new global climate finance goal of $1.3 trillion per year by 2030, agreed upon in Baku, has become much harder to achieve. This will impact the poorest countries directly, as well as degrading the international community’s trust in the effectiveness of the process.

5. What happened last time

President Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement during his first administration. Then, as now, one of the primary impacts was to create a leadership vacuum. In that case, that vacuum was largely filled by other nations, plus state, local, and business leaders. The resulting groundswell generated momentum that carried into the Biden Administration and the U.S. re-entry into the Paris Agreement. While much of that foundation remains strong, trends in the private sector have shifted, with a growing number of major corporations and financial institutions backing away from their climate commitments. Global geopolitics has also evolved, raising questions about what role other governments, in particular China, might play in reaction to the United States’ withdrawal from the international governance structures.

Negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan ran well past the scheduled end of the conference Friday evening. While the final outcomes fell short of hopes, they exceeded many expectations.

And while a full analysis of the final decisions will take time, a few key takeaways are already clear. The new goal for climate finance is an important step in the right direction, but responsibilities for it are ambiguous. The same can be said for the global goal on adaptation, conclusions about the need for enhanced research and observation systems, and a work plan for greater involvement of Indigenous peoples in the UN climate negotiation process. There was some enhanced clarity around mechanisms for implementing carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement; however, the failure to reach consensus on the Just Transition Work Programme and improvements to the Global Stocktake process used to gauge progress toward climate goals were distinct disappointments.

Every COP presents unique challenges and opportunities, the pace of diplomacy rarely matches the acceleration of climate change, and under the Paris Agreement, the responsibility for ambition lies at the national level. But the main negotiations—as important as they are—are not the only venue where progress is made. Over the course of the two week convening, Woodwell Climate’s delegation hosted and participated in dozens of meetings and events, scoring significant wins at COP29:

As is always the case, this COP was the first step on the road to the next one. COP30 will bring the UN climate change negotiation process back to Brazil, where the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992, and where sustainable food production and tropical forest conservation—core areas of research and expertise for Woodwell Climate—are expected to be at the top of the agenda.

Woodwell Climate Research Center and UN Climate Change are collaborating to develop a new training course—announced November 14 at COP29 in Azerbaijan—to prepare experts for a voluntary review of adaptation reporting by Parties under the Paris Agreement.

Countries submit Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) every two years to inform the world about their national climate efforts. These reports are vital enabling tools for governments, helping to build a robust evidence base critical to strengthening climate policies and climate action over time. The first BTRs are due at the end of 2024.

“Transparency is a priority for the COP29 presidency, because transparency is a cornerstone of climate action,” said a representative for the COP29 presidency at the Together for Transparency event on Thursday. 

Each BTR will be reviewed by teams of technical experts coordinated by UN Climate Change, which provides a set of training courses for experts to prepare for that task. A country can request a voluntary review of the information it has reported on adaptation efforts, which requires special expertise on climate risk and adaptation to execute. 

This collaboration draws on Woodwell expertise on climate change impacts and adaptation reporting, as well as climate risk and vulnerability assessments. Woodwell Climate’s Director of International Government Relations, Dr. Matti Goldberg, was responsible for spearheading this collaborative effort.  

The training will encompass a set of five lessons and accompanying exams that help future expert reviewers learn key aspects of vulnerability assessments, adaptation planning, monitoring and evaluation, and loss and damage, among other issues. These lessons will be launched in a PDF downloadable format by the end of 2024.

Squabbling, compromise, disappointment, hope, and incremental change— these are features of any decision making process, but especially one requiring the cooperation and agreement of nearly 200 countries with varied interests, resources, and desire for change. 

At the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), member countries gather to hash out the gritty details of international agreements concerning climate change. These COPs have become the world’s most prominent stage for climate action, drawing not only heads of state and diplomats, but also scientists, activists, businesses, journalists, financial organizations, Indigenous knowledge holders, artists, and spiritual leaders, just to name a few. All are in attendance to influence the future of planet Earth. 

Here’s how climate’s biggest event of the year steers the international framework for combating climate change.

What is COP?

Formally, the COP is the decision-making platform for signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is a legally binding agreement between UN member countries, created specifically to tackle the crisis of climate change. Each year since its creation, delegations from participating countries (called Parties) have met at the COP to discuss the agreements and mechanisms by which to address climate change. 

After two weeks of negotiation, conference delegates produce text that becomes binding for UNFCCC Parties. These texts have legislated things from the commitment of industrialized nations to reduce emissions, to the direction of funding for climate action, to the upper limit of acceptable warming. 

The prominence and importance of these conference proceedings have grown with each year and each increment of warming. The conference itself has expanded to encompass climate action across multiple channels at once.

“There are actually three COPs happening in parallel,” says Woodwell Climate’s Director of International Government Relations, Dr. Matti Goldberg, who has learned the ins and outs of the conference over 15 years spent working for the UN’s Climate Change Secretariat.

The first layer is the core of the conference— the negotiations. This is the space where each participating country sends delegates to argue on their behalf. The agenda for each year’s negotiations is developed during preparatory meetings of the delegates, with planning sometimes starting two years in advance, and resulting in agendas of 50-60 interlinked issues. COPs are typically judged as successes or failures based on the strength of the resulting text from the formal negotiations. The complexity of the issues, and the negotiating tactics of different countries, tend to push final agreements well beyond the scheduled closing of the COP.  

Then there’s what Goldberg calls the “high-level COP.” This is the platform for heads of state to showcase their country’s progress on various issues. Think, speeches from the president, announcements of new coalitions, hand-shaking between ministers, or denunciations of other countries’ lack of action. Although the high-level COP can feel like superficial performance, deals between countries can help move the negotiations forward— or delay them, depending on a country’s interests.

Surrounding both the formal negotiations and closed door deals is the “third COP” — also referred to as the “Blue Zone”: a space open to scientists, NGOs, activists, and companies for hosting side events, pavilions with panel talks and presentations, forge new partnerships, hold protests, and apply pressure on negotiators. The third COP also spills out into a “Green Zone”, a space where those not badged for the official conference can organize events and contribute to the momentum of the moment.

What does an NGO do at COP?

For an organization like Woodwell Climate, the third COP is the main stage on which to contribute to the conference. 

“Our first priority is to showcase our research and its relevance to the key questions of each year’s COP,” says Goldberg.

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Woodwell Climate will host a pavilion to showcase the organization’s work in several key areas, including climate risks and national security, accounting for growing natural emissions sources like permafrost thaw and wildfires, as well as emerging collaborations with new partner countries such as Ethiopia. The pavilion also serves as a convening place to discuss work with partners.

“The sheer scale of participation at COPs makes them critical annual opportunities to solidify existing partnerships and build new ones,” says Goldberg.

While participants of this third COP aren’t officially part of negotiations, Woodwell Climate scientists still have opportunities to participate in the more formal COP processes. Each COP hosts an “Earth Information Day” where scientists exchange data and research with country delegations to better inform decision making. At COP29, Woodwell has proposed to highlight the latest research on wildfire emissions.

Scientists also have a role to play in ensuring national emissions reductions plans are based on accurate numbers—a point that Woodwell Climate will be emphasizing both at this COP and beyond. In 2025, countries must submit their updated 5-year climate targets (called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) to the UNFCCC. The adequacy of those targets depends on how much carbon can still be emitted without surpassing the agreed-upon maximum limit of warming.

“Our research on permafrost and wildfires indicates that the global carbon budget available for staying below the 1.5 degrees Celcius temperature limit might be much smaller than countries are thinking right now,” says Goldberg. “From the Woodwell perspective, it would be great to remind the international community that the numbers need to add up. We need to take into account these emissions that are not being discussed.”

Successes and failures in three decades of COP

Over his tenure with the UN Secretariat, Goldberg has witnessed both promising action and frustrating setbacks, sometimes at the same conference. 

COP15, held in Copenhagen in 2009 was one of those moments for him. Here negotiations decayed, and the weak resulting agreement failed to legally bind countries to emissions reductions.

“Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving,” Goldberg jokes. “Countries will generally not agree to a regime that will force them to take on targets determined at the UN or by others.”

But Goldberg says that Copenhagen did, at least, define a new paradigm where every country would commit to doing something. Voluntarily, and perhaps not ambitiously enough, but in a year widely considered a failure, steps towards universal climate cooperation were still made.

Each successive COP built upon this new paradigm and in 2015 the conference arrived at another milestone— the Paris Agreement. This is the framework under which the world operates today, with every country creating NDCs appropriate to their size and resources, with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. 

The agreement spurred more conversation around how that goal would be achieved, and in 2018 the parties adopted a rulebook for its implementation. Since then, however, Goldberg says many of the conferences have been “searching for real purpose” — some kind of action to match the ambition of the Paris Agreement. But, in Goldberg’s mind, that doesn’t necessarily indicate a failure of the process.

“You can’t have a spectacle forever,” says Goldberg. “At some point the pressure should be less on the COP itself and more on countries actually working under the Paris Agreement to get more ambitious about what they’re doing, and probably making some very painful decisions at the national level.”

Climate has the world’s attention

But of course, policy making moves slowly, both for the UN and national governments. And with each year that passes, cooperation and increased ambition becomes more urgent. In 2023, record high temperatures spurred conversations about whether the 1.5 degree limit has already been surpassed. In five years, Goldberg states, “it might be way too late even to pretend that we are under that limit.”

But Goldberg remains hopeful. Before the COPs, before 30 years of tough conversations attempting to find a way through the climate crisis, Goldberg says, the prevailing thought among political scientists was that international cooperation on this scale was a fantasy. But despite its failures, the process has persisted, inching the world towards climate action. Other international treaties have taken their lead from this process as well, hosting COPs to address issues like plastic pollution and biodiversity.

“The fact that there are so many people dedicated to solving this and to working through mutual disagreements, that people haven’t walked away, makes me hopeful,” says Goldberg. “This is possibly the hardest global policy problem there is, and it has the world’s attention. I think that’s very positive.”

Woodwell Climate’s Government Relations team led the Center’s third annual D.C. fly-in this September, and you might say the third time was the charm.

“It was really impressive to see how we’ve built over the three years of doing the fly-in,” said Laura Uttley, Director of Government Relations. “The scale and scope of meetings, having five of 13 Congressional meetings be with Members themselves, and to have 17 Board members, senior leaders, and scientists participate—it’s just really exciting.”

Over the course of three days, the Woodwell Climate delegation tackled a range of near-term legislative priorities, such as the Natural Climate Solutions Research and Extension Act, standalone legislation that is currently being considered as part of Farm Bill negotiations and was adapted in the House version of the Farm Bill as “soil health research,” as well as longer-term policy development and relationship building. 

Engagements spanned the full diversity of Woodwell Climate’s work. Meetings with leadership of the House Climate Solutions Caucus and Conservative Climate Caucus focused on the economic impacts of climate change and the need for expanded national climate services to make risk information available to all communities. A Permafrost Pathways delegation, including representatives of Alaska Native partner communities, shared a range of perspectives on rapid Arctic change with Alaska legislators and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. One group talked with staff in the office of Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) of New York about carbon markets, and with Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) about Massachusetts-based research, including river monitoring and wetland restoration. Woodwell Climate also met with Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), Chair of the Democratic Caucus, to discuss opportunities to advance and protect climate policies, especially as leadership considers agendas for the next Congress. 

Across all the sub-teams and meetings, Uttley says three big takeaways stood out:

1. Relationships matter

That Woodwell’s delegation secured thirteen Congressional meetings—five of them with Members themselves, including leadership of key committees and caucuses—is a testament to the Center’s credibility and the depth of relationships that the Government Relations team is building. A summer of high-profile Supreme Court decisions, the end of the fiscal year looming, and a tumultuous election cycle all contributed to a chaotic energy on the Hill in September, and legislators were only in session for three weeks between their summer recess and a break for election activities. Despite those pressures, Uttley says lawmakers and their staff were enthusiastic and engaged.  

She attributes that to months (years, really) of relationship building grounded in a “here’s where we agree, and here’s how we can help” approach. An enormous amount of time and thought goes into crafting meeting agendas and materials that meet legislators where they are, address their needs and interests, and highlight common ground and opportunities for progress. 

Consistency is also key, Uttley says. While individual Members come and go, and the political climate shifts, Woodwell Climate’s annual fly-in and growing year-round presence in Washington, D.C. are reminders that we are a reliable resource of information, and in it for the long haul.

2. Caucuses and committees are impact amplifiers

Meetings with individual legislators and/or their staff can be incredibly productive, but time is limited. Briefing an entire committee or meeting with leadership of a caucus group can be an effective way to get scientific expertise and policy priorities to many legislators at once. For example, part of the Woodwell delegation met with leadership of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus (more than 60 members), staff for the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (100 Democratic members), and staff for the Conservative Climate Caucus, which has more than 80 Republican members, all interested in pragmatic climate solutions. These larger groups are also less susceptible to disruption through election cycles, which creates opportunities to work on policy agendas with a longer runway.

3. Accessible information makes a difference

Maps on the table, personal accounts of climate impacts, data tailored to a legislator’s district, and plain language science summaries were all on display during the fly-in, and Uttley says the Center’s commitment to making climate science relevant and accessible is a distinguishing feature that opens doors and builds relationships. 

“To be able to find hooks and make climate science accessible for such a range of audiences on so many different topics is really impactful,” Uttley said. 

Overall, Uttley said being in the room as scientists, community members, and policymakers —and seeing the energy they all came away with—left her with one overarching takeaway: Change is possible and “the Climate Science for Change motto is actually lived; it’s not just something we say.”

1. Collaborating with Communities

This year, Woodwell Climate’s Just Access Initiative went global. Just Access works in close partnership with communities to provide tailored, actionable climate risk reports for Rio Branco, Brazil; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Summit County, Utah; and Lawrence, MA. At COP28, Just Access released their latest report in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the DRC, which focused on climate risks and potential solutions in the country and identified carbon markets as a potential funding mechanism for adaptation efforts.

Just Access collaborates with local officials and advocates to ensure the final reports cover information critical to their community’s planning. So far, 14 reports have been completed and more are on the way.

Read the report.

2. Tongass National Forest Protection

In January of 2023, the Biden Administration restored protections against logging and road-building for more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. 

This came after Woodwell Climate’s Dr. Wayne Walker and Geospatial Analyst Seth Gorelik, along with long-time collaborator Dr. Dominick DellaSalla of Wild Heritage, delivered a research report to the Biden administration showing massive carbon stores in Tongass National Forest and highlighting the importance of roadless areas. 

3. Citizen Science with Science on the Fly

In 2023, Science on the Fly’s (SOTF) focused their activities on stewarding their community of scientists. Together they collected more than 3,000 water samples from hundreds of locations around the globe. SOTF leverages the passion and dedication of the global fly fishing community to gather data on the health of rivers across the world. With this data, SOTF can improve our understanding of how watersheds and river systems change over time due to climate change and local effects.

Read about the project’s activities this year.

4. Training the Next Generation of Researchers

We sent 10 Polaris Project students into the field this summer. The Polaris Project engages the brightest young minds from a diversity of backgrounds to tackle global climate research in one of Earth’s most vulnerable environments: the Arctic.

Students conducted their own research projects over two weeks at a field research station near Bethel, Alaska. Afterwards, they returned to the Center to analyze samples, and presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December.

Woodwell Climate also hosted several interns through the Partnership Education Program. These undergraduate students participated in research and communications activities across the center.

Read PEP intern, Jonathan Kopeliovich’s story about research in Howland Forest.

5. Convening Critical Conversations

Woodwell Climate has been conducting tropical forest research in Brazil for nearly two decades alongside partner organization IPAM Amazônia. This year, Water Program Director, Dr. Marcia Macedo and collaborators, including Dr. Ane Alencar of IPAM, convened a multi-day workshop in Brazil that produced a policy brief on forest degradation. They then organized experts to submit public comments on Brazil’s updated policy for controlling Amazon deforestation, which for the first time also addresses forest degradation.

Read the policy brief here.

Across the globe, Permafrost Pathways partner, Alaska Institute for Justice (AIJ), hosted a “Rights, Resilience, and Community-Led Adaptation” workshop on Dena’ina homelands in Anchorage, Alaska. The two-day workshop created space for Tribes to share their expertise with each other and connect face-to-face with federal and state government representatives to access resources and technical assistance.

Read more about the workshop.

6. Representing Our Expertise

Our experts showed up as thought leaders this year at several high profile events. As just a few examples, Woodwell Climate’s Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali and Senior Science Policy Advisor Peter Frumhoff both spoke on panels alongside other leading voices in climate at SxSW in Austin, TX. Senior Geospatial Analyst, Greg Fiske attended the Esri User Conference, where his topographic map of Alaska garnered two awards. And Assistant Scientist, Dr. Ludmilla Rattis gave a talk at TED Countdown about her research on the role of Tapirs in rainforest restoration. (Recording coming in early 2024)

7. Making Headlines

Woodwell Climate team members showed up in over 5,000 media stories this year. Our scientific leadership provided quotes for a broad range of high profile climate stories in New York Times, Reuters, Boston Globe, CNN and Grist, just to name a few. Senior Scientist Dr. Jen Francis was quoted over 4.2K times, appearing in major news outlets like the Washington Post and AP News to provide accessible context about the links between climate change and extreme weather events. 

8. Rebuilding an Arctic Research Station

Last fall, Scotty Creek Research Station in Canada—one of the only Indigenous-led climate research stations in the world—was almost entirely consumed by a late-season wildfire. Woodwell Climate’s Permafrost Pathways project is providing rebuilding support to the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation. Project scientists Dr. Kyle Arndt and Marco Montemayor visited the site for two weeks this spring to restore an essential carbon monitoring tower.

Read the story of Scotty Creek.

9. Advancing the Scientific Literature

Our researchers published 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications this year. From the Arctic to the Tropics, from soil concentrations to river concentrations, Woodwell Climate had a part in discovery.

Assessing carbon stocks and accumulation potential of mature forests and larger trees in U.S. federal lands

Recent trends in the chemistry of major northern rivers signal widespread Arctic change

Grain-cropping suitability for evaluating the agricultural land use change in Brazil

Observational and model evidence together support wide-spread exposure to noncompensable heat under continued global warming

Explore all our publications.

10. Leading on the World Stage

Woodwell Climate’s President & CEO Dr. Max Holmes brought Woodwell Climate to the main stage of CERAWeek, Green Accelerator Davos, GenZero Climate Summit in Singapore, Climate Week NYC, and Mountainfilm Festival. He discussed cutting-edge climate science alongside notable figures like Bill McKibben and former Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez.Read about Dr. Holmes’ time at Davos.

COP 28, the annual meeting of United Nations delegates to set goals and report progress on addressing climate change, closed last week in Dubai after a two-week rollercoaster that was both promising and discouraging. When weak draft language surfaced, just a few days before negotiations were set to close, shying away from any clear call to eliminate fossil fuels, the outlook was not optimistic. But nearly overnight, representatives managed to arrive at a deal. For the first time in 28 years of negotiations, the final agreement included direct reference to the need to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.”

The language is not as strong as many hoped, but it still represents a historic step forward, and came as a positive surprise after controversy surrounding the oil interests of the host country.

“We’ve known from COP number one that fossil fuels are a major cause of the problem with respect to climate change, but the reality is that it wasn’t until COP28 that the words ‘fossil fuels’ were actually recognized in the agreement,” says Woodwell Climate CEO and President, Dr. Max Holmes. “It’s really late in the game, but I think it’s important that this was finally recognized. Yet words are not actions, and much more needs to be done.”

International agreements were also made to reduce methane emissions generated by fossil fuel extraction and triple renewable energy by 2030, as well as enact the agreed-upon Loss and Damage fund created last year, which will use contributions from wealthier countries to support those suffering the worst climate-related impacts.

Progress also occurred on many smaller stages at COP28. Woodwell Climate had a strong presence, sending 16 scientists and staff to advocate on a variety of issues, including increased ambition in curbing emissions, funding for adaptation measures, action around permafrost and tropical forest issues, and improvements in transparency around carbon markets. Here are some of our key highlights and takeaways from COP28.

Protecting tropical forests

One core tenet of the Center’s research is the value of protecting and restoring natural ecosystems for both their intrinsic and climate importance. A check-in on pledges to end deforestation by 2030 shows they are mostly going unmet, but the final agreement did include language that acknowledged the importance of “protecting, conserving, and restoring forests”, which Woodwell Carbon Program Director, Dr. Wayne Walker, notes was another significant inclusion this year.

“Nature has a tremendous role to play and that’s really what this section is trying to emphasize: the importance of bringing nature to bear in the mitigation conversation alongside transitioning away from fossil fuels,” said Dr. Walker.

Woodwell Climate used this year’s COP to build and deepen partnerships that advance efforts to protect the carbon-storage powerhouses that are tropical forests. For example, Woodwell Climate hosted a discussion with Health in Harmony and Pawanka Fund about the power of  investing in Indigenous-led climate solutions. 

“Woodwell has been partnering increasingly with organizations like Health in Harmony and Pawanka fund, who are really strong advocates of Indigenous self-determination”, says Dr. Walker. “Pawanka Fund is a really great example of an Indigenous-led fund that provides direct support to Indigenous initiatives focused on promoting and protecting traditional knowledge, well-being, rights, and self-determined solutions to a whole host of issues. Organizations like [them] are critical to properly compensating Indigenous peoples for their contributions to climate change mitigation.”

Climate risk and carbon markets

On December 5, Woodwell Climate announced the release of a new report in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development (MEDD) of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The report was the culmination of a multi-year collaboration to generate a localized, customized, cost-free climate risk assessment for the country that details both challenges and solutions. 

“This report was two years in the making, and was only possible because of close collaboration between Woodwell scientists, government leaders in the DRC, and experts at the University of Kinshasa,” says Woodwell Chief of Government Relations. “Our goal was to provide an actionable risk assessment that could directly inform Congolese policymaking. We developed that, but our partnership also identified the need for increased scientific and technical capacity, as well as a new framework for carbon market regulation.” 

The assessment identified improved carbon credit integrity as a mechanism to fund climate adaptation projects in the DRC and support forest preservation as a critical natural climate solution.

“We and others think carbon markets will have tremendous potential for bringing large amounts of capital to the ground to the people into the places responsible for implementing natural climate solutions,” says Dr. Walker. “But there’s no question that right now, carbon markets are plagued with all sorts of problems. There’s a lot of work to be done if they’re to function properly, sustainably, equitably.”

Pushing for permafrost accountability

Unfortunately, neither the Arctic nor permafrost were mentioned in the COP28 final agreement and Woodwell Climate Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, says it is crucial that changes.

“Permafrost emissions can consume about 20% of our remaining carbon budget to avoid 1.5 C, and there will be much greater emissions from permafrost if we overshoot 1.5 C,” says Dr. Natali.

Dr. Natali spoke at several events in the Woodwell Climate space as well as in the Cryosphere Pavilion during Permafrost Day. Top of mind was not only the need to incorporate permafrost emissions into global carbon budgets, but also the need for Loss and Damage funding to extend to Northern communities being displaced by thawing and eroding permafrost. Discussions around Loss and Damage funding are currently focused on supporting countries in the global south, but many Arctic communities are grappling with decisions about relocation and adaptation, and have been for decades.

“These communities who already have very limited land are losing it to permafrost thaw, wildfire, increased storm impacts. This has been going on for a really long time and they urgently need resources,” Dr. Natali said. 

Where the rubber meets the road

“These high-minded Nationally Determined Commitments are ambitious in their target setting, but the national level policy is where they become reality,” says McGlinchey. Emphasizing that we will have to wait and see how the promises made at this year’s COP are enacted by different nations. During the conference, the Woodwell Climate meeting space was visited by two US senators, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who showed interest in permafrost and other climate issues.

Looking towards COP29, which will be hosted in Azerbaijan, the hope is that ambition and national commitments will increase, because while progress was made in this year’s agreement, it was nowhere near big enough to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees celsius. With current warming at around 1.2 degrees, we will have to be swift and decisive.

“This past year was a remarkable one— the hottest on record. The impacts of climate change are here and are being felt by people here and around the world. And that adds urgency,” says Dr. Holmes.

For the full debrief of COP28, you can watch our Webinar here.

Woodwell Climate’s Dr. Sue Natali appointed to DOI adaptation science council

Woodwell Climate’s Arctic Program Senior Scientist and Permafrost Pathways Lead Dr. Sue Natali was appointed by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland as a member of the new federal Advisory Council for Climate Adaptation Science.

Read more on Permafrost Pathways’ website.