The COP 28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, was the biggest of its kind. Some 85,000 participants, including more than 150 Heads of State and Government, were among the representatives of national delegations, civil society, business, Indigenous Peoples, youth, philanthropy, and international organizations in attendance at the Conference from 30 November to 13 December 2023.
COP 28 was particularly momentous as it marked the conclusion of the first ‘global stocktake’ of the world’s efforts to address climate change under the Paris Agreement. Having shown that progress was too slow across all areas of climate action – from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthening resilience to a changing climate, to getting the financial and technological support to vulnerable nations – countries responded with a decision on how to accelerate action across all areas by 2030. This includes a call on governments to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels to renewables such as wind and solar power in their next round of climate commitments.
Below we unpack the significance of this crucial decision and some of the key highlights from COP 28 that marked major steps forward in the global effort to address the climate emergency. Of course, the work doesn’t begin and end with COP 28, so we’ve also outlined some of the challenges and opportunities heading into 2024 and beyond.
COP 28 closed with an agreement that signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance. As COP 28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said: “We have language on fossil fuel in the (COP) final agreement for the first time ever.” It clearly points to the direction of travel in the energy transition, and that the scale and pace of change can’t be stopped or reversed.
The call on nations to transition away from fossil fuels was part of a decision by nearly 200 Parties on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade – with the overarching aim to keep the global temperature limit of 1.5°C within reach.
“Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.”
The ‘global stocktake’ is considered the central outcome of COP 28 – as it contains every element that was under negotiation and can now be used by countries to develop stronger climate action plans due by February 2025.
The stocktake recognizes the science that indicates global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But it notes Parties are off track when it comes to meeting their Paris Agreement goals.
The stocktake calls on Parties to take actions towards achieving, at a global scale, a tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030. The list also includes accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and other measures that drive the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, with developed countries continuing to take the lead.
In the short-term, Parties are encouraged to come forward with ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gases, sectors and categories and aligned with the 1.5°C limit in their next round of climate action plans (known as nationally determined contributions) by early 2025.
The two-week-long conference got underway with a historic agreement on the operationalization of funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage, including a new dedicated fund under the UNFCCC – the first time a substantive decision was adopted on the first day of the conference. Commitments to address loss and damage started coming in moments after the decision was gavelled, totalling more than USD 600 million to date.
This historic agreement builds on the landmark decision a year earlier at COP 27 where nations agreed to set up a fund to support vulnerable countries and communities already experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change. Discussions on operationalizing the new funding arrangements, including this fund, for loss and damage took place during 2023 in meetings of a Transitional Committee, which brought together representatives of both developed and developing countries.
The establishment of the fund, with commitments totalling USD 661 million to date, is an important symbol of global solidarity reflecting both the urgency of the climate emergency and a step forward in international climate justice.
There was more progress on the loss and damage agenda with an agreement also reached that the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN Office for Project Services will host the secretariat of the Santiago network for loss and damage. This platform will catalyse technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
In a major step forward, Parties agreed on targets for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and its framework, which identify where the world needs to get to in order to be resilient to the impacts of a changing climate and to assess countries’ efforts.
The GGA framework reflects a global consensus on adaptation targets and covers the themes of water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication and cultural heritage.
The decision gives adaptation progress a future orientation for the first time, reflecting aspiration and ambition, as opposed to the previous practice of measurement against past efforts.
While adaptation efforts are more difficult to quantify (unlike the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and are very specific to the locations and geographies of implementation, the GGA aims to guide adaptation planning and strategies at all levels, and to align the finance, technology and capacity-building support needed to achieve these.
Climate finance took centre stage at the conference, with Stiell repeatedly calling it the “great enabler of climate action.”
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) received a boost to its second replenishment with six countries pledging new funding at COP28 with total pledges now standing at a record USD 12.8 billion from 31 countries, with further contributions expected.
However as highlighted in the ‘global stocktake’, current climate finance flows channelled by multilateral, bilateral and private sources taken together are far short of the trillions eventually needed to support developing countries with clean energy transitions, implementing their national climate plans and adaptation efforts.
In order to deliver such funding, the ‘global stocktake’ underscores the importance of reforming the multilateral financial architecture, scaling up climate finance through grants and concessional finance and accelerating the ongoing establishment of new and innovative sources of finance.
At COP 28, discussions continued on setting a ‘new collective quantified goal on climate finance’ in 2024, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries. The new goal, which will start from a baseline of USD 100 billion per year, will help support the implementation of a new round of national climate plans that need to be designed and submitted by early 2025.
COP 28 resulted in unprecedented recognition and momentum for linking efforts to address the climate and biodiversity crises. Alongside pollution, these make up the triple planetary crisis – the three, main interlinked environmental issues facing humanity.
Governments were called on to consider ecosystems, biodiversity and carbon stores, such as forests, when developing their stronger national climate action plans (known as nationally determined contributions), which are due by early 2025.
This call was part of a wide-ranging, comprehensive decision by Parties on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade with the aim of limiting the global temperature rise within 1.5°C.
The decision emphasizes “the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems towards achieving the Paris agreement temperature goal” through protecting “terrestrial and marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by conserving biodiversity.” This also includes “halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030”, which would eliminate about 14% of global emissions and enhance the capacity of forests to store more carbon. This is the first time such a pledge has garnered formal recognition under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Recognizing “the need for enhanced support and investment, including through financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building” for these combined efforts to address the climate and biodiversity crises, governments are urged to approach this based on “the best available science as well as Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and local knowledge systems”.
Nature-based solutions were also recognized in the decision on the ‘global stocktake’, recognizing that nature and biodiversity are keys to mitigating a heating planet and protecting vulnerable communities from the impacts of a changing climate.
In parallel with the formal negotiations, the Global Climate Action space at COP 28 provided a platform for governments, businesses and civil society to collaborate and showcase their practical climate solutions.
The High-Level Champions, under the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, launched their implementation roadmap of 2030 Climate Solutions. These are a set of solutions, with insights from a wide range of non-Party stakeholders on effective measures that need to be scaled up and replicated to halve global emissions, address adaptation gaps and increase resilience by 2030.
The conference also saw several major announcements to reduce emissions and boost resilience in certain sectors:
One hundred and twenty-five countries signed onto the UAE Climate and Health Declaration, and finance providers mobilized an initial tranche of USD 1 billion for climate and health solutions. The Declaration urges governments to act to protect communities and prepare health systems for climate impacts, such as extreme heat stress and increased spread of infectious diseases.
The negotiations on the ‘enhanced transparency framework’ at COP 28 laid the ground for a new era of implementing the Paris Agreement. UN Climate Change is developing the transparency reporting and review tools for use by Parties, which were showcased and tested at COP 28. The final versions of the reporting tools should be made available to Parties by June 2024.
COP 28 also saw Parties agree to Azerbaijan as host of COP 29 from 11-22 November 2024, and Brazil as COP 30 host from 10-21 November 2025.
The next two years will be critical. At COP 29, governments must establish a new climate finance goal, reflecting the scale and urgency of the climate challenge. And at COP 30, they must come prepared with new nationally determined contributions that are economy-wide, cover all greenhouse gases and are fully aligned with the 1.5°C temperature limit.
“We must get on with the job of putting the Paris Agreement fully to work,” said Stiell. “In early 2025, countries must deliver new nationally determined contributions. Every single commitment – on finance, adaptation, and mitigation – must bring us in line with a 1.5-degree world.”
Urging people everywhere to raise their voices for change, Stiell said: “Every one of you is making a real difference. In the crucial coming years your voices and determination will be more important than ever.”
