Gov. Jay Inslee will be traveling to Baku, Azerbaijan for the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29).
This is the fourth COP that Inslee will attend. He first attended COP as governor in 2017 following then-President Trump’s announced plan to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Since then, Inslee has championed the importance of subnational leadership and emphasized the ways that state and regional governments can go further, faster to advance meaningful policies.
Inslee helped launch the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan alliance of governors who are collectively working to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. He co-founded the International Ocean Acidification Alliance, and helps lead the Pacific Coast Collaborative, America Is All In and Under2 Coalition. In 2022, Inslee signed Washington state on as a member of the international Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Transportation Decarbonization Alliance.
Washington state has adopted several policies that work together to reduce state emissions 95% by 2050. These policies have captured the attention of other states and provincial governments, including the Climate Commitment Act’s equity-focused carbon market and clean building standards.
The increasing urgency of ending the use of fossil fuels is in headlines every day. In 2022, scientists warned the planet had reached “code red.” Earlier this year they announced global temperatures are on course to surge past 2.5C, an increase that some scientists say could lead to “major societal disruption within the next five years.” After another year of deadly storms and extreme weather exacerbated by climate change, scientists announced last week that melting Arctic ice could cause a “catastrophic ocean current collapse” in the Atlantic Ocean.
Inslee’s attendance to COP29 is financed with the support of The Climate Registry and the Climate Action Reserve.