MSC @ COP29

The Munich Security Conference (MSC) hosted four events alongside the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, building on its engagement at the past three COP summits in Glasgow, Sharm El-Sheikh, and Dubai. On the second day of the summit, November 12, 2024, the MSC brought together participants from politics, industry, academia, and civil society, and from countries of both the Global North and South. Enriched by the participants’ diverse, cross-sectoral perspectives, the discussions illustrated the multifold climate security dimensions and sketched-out pathways towards stronger international climate cooperation amidst rising geopolitical tensions.

The MSC’s engagement at COP29 started and closed with vivid discussions on the nexus between climate and food security. The breakfast debate, part of the events of the MSC’s Food Security Task Force, focused on ways to alleviate food insecurity and build more climate-resilient food systems. With more than 500 billion US dollars required each year between now and 2050 to transform and stabilize global food systems, speakers stressed the urgent need for both increased public and private investments. In addition to more resources, discussants called for improved efficiency of existing funds and highlighted the importance of technology transfer and knowledge sharing. A controversy arose over the question of “food sovereignty” versus the role of the trade in improving food resilience. While one speaker emphasized the importance of national food production, others called for deeper and more diversified trade ties, especially as intensified extreme weather events threaten food production and crop yields.

At a Night Reception, co-hosted with Community Jamel and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), participants delved into the role of technology for improving food security. While there was general consensus on the strong potential of technological innovation, it was also clear from the input statements that new technologies alone will not provide the solution. Rather, they must be coupled with indigenous knowledge. As in the breakfast discussion, speakers further added that better access to existing technologies and higher financial resources must be part of the equation.   

Finance was also at the heart of the MSC’s lunch discussion, co-hosted with Ernst & Young (EY) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PiK). The event focused on finance for climate adaptation and mitigation, complementing the debates at a COP summit, dubbed “Finance COP.” The glaring climate finance gap was the starting point of the discussion, with speakers pointing to both the lack of resources and the unequal distribution of financial flows. Although home to the world’s best renewable resources, the African continent, for example, receives only two percent of global climate finance. To mobilize private capital and address current risk perceptions that discourage investments, speakers called for the further improvement of blended finance instruments. Besides, participants referred to three other elements to boost global climate finance: improved market signals via instruments such as carbon pricing or emissions trading systems; reforms of international financial institutions; and additional sources of finance, for example by rechannelling carbon pricing revenues to low-income countries.  

Participants however also argued that more money alone is not the answer, but that quantity needs to be coupled with “more quality.” In addition to improving the efficiency of existing resources, including by better aligning the “dizzying array” of bi- and multilateral funds, speakers called for facilitating access to finance, especially for low-income and fragile countries.  

At the MSC’s traditional climate reflection dinner, participants exchanged thoughts on how to advance bi- and multilateral climate and energy partnerships. In light of deepening geopolitical frictions and intensifying headwinds for global climate cooperation, there was a strong consensus on the need to explore new and further develop existing partnership models, with one speaker summarizing that “without partnerships, we won’t be able to move forward.” In this context, two arguments repeatedly came up. First, participants stressed that climate cooperation must be linked to green growth agendas and support for low-income countries to move up the value chain. Second, discussants underlined the importance of deepening collaboration between governments, businesses, and civil society, as well as sub-national actors.

The MSC will continue to provide a key platform for debates on climate security and possible entry points for cooperation across geopolitical divides and beyond sectoral boundaries, including at the Munich Leaders Meeting in Brazil next week and the Munich Security Conference in February 2025.

The events at the COP summits form part of the MSC’s Sustainability Program. Within the program’s framework, the MSC regularly hosts high-level events to advance the debate at the intersections of governance, the environment, security, and prosperity. This entails addressing the multiple security dimensions of climate change and a rapidly transforming geopolitical order.