At COP29, Climate Action Requires Data-Driven Solutions 

Pulling the international community together to address global climate issues is a Herculean task. Thankfully, the United Nations Climate Change Conference has been a continuous consortium of the brightest minds working together to create actionable steps toward building a greener and cleaner future. 

Now in its 29th year (COP29) and taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 11-22, this year’s event is being positioned as a “stand-and-deliver COP,” according to UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, who spoke at a recent Brookings Institute event. 

According to Stiell, humanity can’t afford a world of “clean energy haves and have-nots” and that’s why trillions more are needed to turn around this losing proposition. 

How can we take the next steps to ensure more countries and companies benefit, and where all peoples and communities are protected? 

Data-Driven Solutions to Meet the Moment 

As a long-standing COP participant, enterprise software provider SAP is committed to encouraging governments to agree on impactful and action-oriented outcomes at COP29, building further on the UAE Consensus with speed and scale. 

Recommendations for governments and the global community to focus on include: 

1. Creating coherent, reliable and predictable policies, standardization and ESG disclosure frameworks, as well as investments and trusted partnerships to get on track for halving emissions by 2030.  

2. Accelerating the green and digital transition, based on a consistent carbon accounting framework to ensure the same precision as for financial data. This is crucial for carbon transparency across supply chains. 

3. Harnessing the potential of AI and maximizing the benefits from AI-driven climate action while designing and deploying it responsibly. 

Collectively, these three unlocks relieve data readiness concerns and put businesses on the right transformation trajectory for a truly sustainable future. 

– Sophia Mendelsohn, Chief Sustainability and Commercial Officer, SAP SE

We also seek to contribute to global climate action with our own goals to achieve net-zero emissions in our company’s operations and across our value chain by 2030. “This includes reducing emissions and waste, as well as enabling our customers with the development of digital solutions that help them achieve their sustainability goals.

– Matthias Medert, Global Head of Sustainability, SAP SE

Learn more about SAP’s sustainability strategy here.