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By Aditya Ranjan
Egypt turned over leadership of global climate action to the United Arab Emirates on November 30, 2023. With the intention of bringing about a sea change in the records of climate change accords and decision-making, the United Arab Emirates and the 198 parties opened the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP). The first day was hailed as historic since, in just one hour after the meeting began, approximately $420 million was committed to the Loss and Damage fund, and a decision was made regarding its operationalization. The fund has reached $792 million in commitments by the last day of the conference. Together with the UAE, the United Kingdom committed $75 million, and Germany announced that it would provide $100 million US apiece to establish the new fund for reacting to loss and damage. In an additional show of solidarity with one another, 19 nations pledged to the fund and funding arrangements for loss and damage, with the UAE contributing $100 million of that amount.
Another important event that is currently gaining popularity is the “Global Stocktake,” which took place for the first time and allowed the parties or the nations to assess where they are and are not progressing as a group in achieving the objectives of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Every party was supposed to evaluate how far it has come in achieving its targets for adaptation and emissions reduction.
The world’s largest private investment vehicle for climate change action, the Alterra fund, has also been divided into two parts: Alterra Acceleration and Alterra Transformation. Its goal is to mobilize US$250 billion globally by 2030 and promote revolutionary transformation in both economies and lives. Alterra Fund pledges to advance global initiatives to develop a more equitable Climate Finance framework, with a focus on enhancing the Global South’s financial access. Another declaration regarding Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action has received the endorsement of 146 world leaders to discuss how food contributes to emissions and is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Major regenerative agricultural and climate-food innovation efforts were also revealed by businesses and philanthropies, supported by $3.1BN in funding to help carry out the mission.
For the first time in COP history, there was also significant health
During the World Climate Action Summit, local climate action also gained prominence when the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) was introduced by the COP28 Presidency. 65 nations endorsed the coalition, which is supposed to work with Bloomberg Philanthropies and promises to improve collaboration with states, regions, towns, and cities on the development, funding, execution, and oversight of climate initiatives. CHAMP seeks to unlock more possibilities for adaptation and mitigation bolster subnational funding for climate change bolster the upcoming batch of NDCs.
The Global Decarbonization Accelerator (GDA), a set of historic programs intended to accelerate the energy transition and significantly lower global emissions, was also introduced during COP28. Targeting methane and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases, decarbonizing the energy system of today, and quickly scaling up the energy system of tomorrow are the three main pillars of the GDA. It appears to be a thorough plan for systemic change that simultaneously addresses energy supply and demand. 50 gas and oil firms pledged to completely decarbonize by 2050 and eliminate methane by 2030. A commitment was made by 118 nations to double energy efficiency and triple global renewables capacity by 2030.
To assist nations in carrying out their commitments to integrated water and food systems management, it has also started a two-year collaboration on water-resilient food systems. This partnership will be housed under the UNFCCC Climate-Resilient Food Systems Allowance. The UAE’s Waste to Zero Initiative, which aims to accelerate solutions to decarbonize waste management, was also launched at COP 28 together with the Cement and Structures Breakthroughs, which aim to expedite the shift to sustainable structures by 2030. It supported the Road Transport Breakthrough in bringing people together to discuss and work toward the goal of rolling out zero-emission vehicles by 2030, and it facilitated the garbage MAP, the first-ever global platform to collect and measure methane emissions from garbage via satellite monitoring. Furthermore, over 200 diverse non-state actors signed a “Call to Action for Transforming Food Systems for People, Nature, and Climate,” which called for the creation of a set of global, comprehensive, and time-bound targets by COP29 at the latest and committed to ten priority actions to transform food systems.
The list goes on with many other commitments such as Commitment to Sustainable Ocean Plans to bring half the world’s oceans under 100%, the launch of the International Mangrove Research Center, the launch of the Youth Stocktake report, and showcasing more than 200 innovative climate tech start-ups.
It’s better to call COP 28 a conference full of pledges, declarations, and commitments.
It issued 11 pledges and declarations, including the so-called first-ever declarations on food systems transformation and health, and declarations on renewable energy and efficiency, as well as initiatives to decarbonize heavy emitting industries.
A fundamental and enduring topic in every COP edition is finance. Setting the standard for a new age in climate action, it has raised more than $85 billion in funds, including $3.5 billion to restock the Green Climate Fund and about $188 million for the Adaptation Fund. However, these finances are too little to turn the will for change into climate action, it needs to be available, accessible, and affordable. Ensuring that these funds are available to everyone who wishes to work and enhance the ecosystem is also imperative. To prevent simply a tiny elite group from using these resources for their goals, it must encourage openness and inclusiveness. The stakeholders should cooperate to make sure that the funds are allocated fairly and effectively in order to spur global climate action.
Another point that one must understand is that the parties or the states came together to agree on ways to address the climate crisis with the most prominent concern of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. In this regard, the UAE Consensus calls for a just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems during this crucial decade to help the world achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The consensus that replacing the term phasing out of fossil fuel to transitioning away is noteworthy here as it is widely criticized by the experts of the scientific and academic community for lacking a clear timeline and adopting a flexible approach towards the use of fossil fuels. This is the reason why the conference of parties has always been called a talk show and faces criticism. This 28th edition seems one of the best talk show sessions which concluded with the slogan “United, Acted and Delivered”. However, I would say that it has concluded with only commitments and full of pledges with no action and delivery. This will be historic only unless the commitments and pledges set are fulfilled, which seems to be impossible in the times to come. Still, the long-standing challenge is how to cut carbon emissions without crossing the 1.5-degree warming threshold, which is the point at which it gets harder for people, animals, and other living beings to survive on Earth. Is it possible for our politicians and current economic structure or financial system to lead us towards that future, or will there be a bitter struggle ahead? It is also interesting to note that the nation hosted the C0P 28, which is crafting a narrative about reaching a historic milestone in the history of climate change, is a nation whose whole economy
(The author is a Doctoral Candidate at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
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