The fortnight-long COP 28 that will begin in Dubai on November 30 will test the resolve of countries much more than any of the UNFCCC’s recent meets. Global temperatures have broken all records this year, and 2023 looks set to be the hottest. The IPCC reckons that emissions need to fall 43 per cent this decade to stay under the 1.5-degree C limit agreed on by countries in the Paris Pact. But there is very little evidence of the warnings being heeded.
The UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report shows that global emissions were a billion tonnes more than in 2019. The International Energy Agency’s estimates show that fossil fuel use is not likely to come down before 2030.
In September, a UNFCCC stocktaking report pointed to deficiencies in every aspect of climate action — mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building. The report also affirmed that the current national commitments — the Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs — towards the Paris Pact will not be sufficient to keep the temperature rise below the 1.5-degree C target. The treaty was based on the hope that NDCs would become more ambitious with time. The pact also has a “ratchet mechanism” through which countries are supposed to update their climate pledges every five years. However, the stocktaking process assesses the cumulative effects of the NDCs.
It does not pin responsibility on individual countries. This approach is rightly based on the principle that mitigation is a collective responsibility. But it also makes the already contentious task of scaling up ambitions more fraught. UNFCCC meetings have almost always come to uneasy stalemates over the issue of who should take up more responsibility and how.
That said, the stocktaking process does speak of “integrated, yet inclusive policymaking”. It also underlines that “scaled-up mobilisation of support for climate action in developing countries entails strategically deploying international public finance”. The ball is now in the court of the negotiators in Dubai. Rigid approaches of the past will have to be discarded for COP 28 to make a meaningful difference.
