UNFCCC's COP 28: main outcomes and failures

 The 28th  conference under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came at a critical moment in time, with 2023 set to be the warmest year on record and the impacts of climate change rapidly accelerating. International climate change negotiations at the COP28 conference in Dubai concluded on 13 December 2023.

Below are the main outcomes and failures of the COP 28:

COP25 in Madrid: any achievements?

COP25 was closed with feeling of big disappointment among majority of participants. Member states failed to come to agreements regarding critically important issues, including set up  of  global carbon trading system and a system to accumulate and transfer new finance to countries facing  devastating impacts of climate change.
According to Paris Agreement, countries need to revisit their climate pledges by 2020. However, China and Brazil opposed placing any obligation on countries to submit enhanced pledges next year, arguing it should be each country’s own decision. Small island countries supported by EU countries insisted on inclusion of a clear call for enhanced ambition in 2020.

What to expect from COP25?

The key issues to be discussed and resolved at COP25 include:
- Strengthening Climate Ambition, Long-Term Decarbonization and Resilience.
At COP25, countries must not only reiterate but strengthen their commitments regarding  enhanced NDCs by 2020 and launch national inclusive and multi-stakeholder enhancement processes.
- The rules, modalities, procedures, and guidance developed under Article 6 must be in line with the highest standard of environmental integrity.
Recommendations should be prepared on far more ambitious NDCs based on the findings of the three recent IPCC special reports on 1.5°C, land, and oceans and cryosphere. Rich countries must use the Pre-2020 

Outcomes of UN Climate Action Summit in New York

United Nations Climate Action Summit, which was held in New York on September 23, 2019, boosted climate action momentum, and demonstrated growing recognition that the pace of climate action must be rapidly accelerated.
 Among major outcomes of the Summit:

• 65 countries and  sub-national economies committed to cut GHG emissions to net zero by 2050
• Over 100 business leaders delivered concrete actions to align with the Paris Agreement targets,  including asset-owners holding over $2 trillion in assets and leading companies with combined value also over $2 trillion

Outcomes of COP24 in Katowice, December 2018

The Katowice climate package, adopted in December 2018 during COP24 in Katowice, Poland, is a set of rules regarding how the Parties will measure the carbon emissions and report on their emissions-cutting efforts. This ‘rulebook’ can be called as the detailed “operating manual” of 2015 Paris Agreement, and it includes:

•    the information about domestic mitigation and other climate goals and activities that governments will provide in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs);
•    the rules for the functioning of the Transparency Framework, which will show to the world what countries are doing about climate change;
•    how to assess progress on the development and transfer of technology;
•    how to provide advance information on financial support to developing countries and the process for establishing new targets on finance from 2025 onwards

The implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement respect the different capabilities and socio-economic realities of each country while providing the foundation for ever-increasing ambition with respect to climate action. They establish an effective international system for promoting and tracking progress while empowering countries to build national systems for implementing the Agreement

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Source: Katowice climate package. UNFCCC

What are the major outcomes of COP 23?

The official  UNFCCC’s press release on November 17, 2017 lists over 30 concrete climate action commitments at COP23.

Couple month later, Climate Institute in the publication COP23: A Critical Assessment of the Conference’s Outcomes provides an overview of the most important outcomes of the negotiations, highlighting the main drawbacks and achievements.

COP22 in Marakech pledged to move ahead with implementation of Paris Agreement

In the Marrakech Action Proclamation Parties to UNFCCC confirmed heir “commitment” to the “full implementation” of the Paris Agreement and called for “the highest political commitment to combat climate change” and “strong solidarity with those countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change”. In the Proclamation, developed countries reaffirmed their $100 billion mobilization goal per year by 2020 to support climate action by developing countries.

Paris Agreement will enter into force on 4 November 2016.

On 5 October 2016, further to the deposit of the instruments of ratification to the Paris Agreement by 74 Parties to the Convention, the per cent of the total global greenhouse gas emissions achieved was 58.82 per cent.  

Researchers: all 36 countries with emission caps under the Kyoto Protocol met their commitments

The results of the analysis, published in the Climate Policy journal, show that significant efforts, made by the EU, Japan and others countries, signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, helped them to collectively surpass their commitments. That might happen even without a rapid emissions drop in Russia, Ukraine and others as they shifted to market economies.

175 countries have signed Paris climate deal on Earth Day

The Paris Climate Change Agreement, adopted last December, was signed by 175 Parties (174 countries and the European Union) at a ceremony at UN Headquarters. "We are in a race against time.The era of consumption without consequences is over" - U.N. secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Key provisions of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change

Paris Agreement to combat climate change and unleash actions and investment towards a low carbon, resilient and sustainable future was agreed by 195 nations in Paris on December 12, 2015. The agreement’s main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The crucial areas identified as essential for a landmark conclusion:

U.S. negotiators ensured Paris climate agreement is Republican-proof

As a result of U.S. insistence, the 31-page agreement was explicitly crafted to exclude emissions reductions targets and finance from the legally binding parts of the deal. Other areas of the deal, including five-year review cycles, do carry legal force. That would free Obama from having to submit the deal to Congress. Also, any clauses in the agreement that would expose the U.S. to liability and compensation claims for causing climate change were avoided.

The former NASA scientist about Paris climate agreement: “It’s a fraud really, a fake”

James Hansen, considered the father and respected voice of global awareness about climate change, criticizes the talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, as ‘no action, just promises'.  According to Hansen, the international celebration is pointless unless greenhouse gas emissions aren’t taxed across the globe, because only this will force down emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst devastating effect of climate change.

Main takeaways on the Paris climate deal

The Paris deal doesn’t make national emissions reduction targets legally binding, so its success will largely depend on the effectiveness of a new system to revisit each country’s progress and raise targets every five years. The Paris agreement attempts to lay down new rules to make sure all countries calculate and publicly report their emissions reductions in the same way after 2020, making it possible to keep track of global progress. However, even if all the greenhouse gas cut pledges made by countries ahead of Paris are carried out, the result would be a world that warms by about 3 degrees.

Paris climate deal have signalled an end to the fossil fuel era

It took almost two decades to come to an ambitious agreement to hold states to emissions targets. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries signed on to a legal agreement in Paris to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.

Christiana Figueres: adopted Paris Agreement at COP21 unites the world for the better future

UNFCCC-Decision -/CP.21- Adoption of the Paris Agreement .

More than 38,000 delegates had registered in Paris for the COP21 climate talks

A provisional list of participants at the UNFCCC COP21 includes delegates who represent countries, UN agencies, charities, campaign groups, universities, companies and media organisations. According to this list, there are around 15,000 participants here on behalf of a particular country/party, 638 participants from 36 UN bodies, 453 people from 20 “specialised agencies”, and 1,226 participants from 71 intergovernmental organisations. Over 7,000 participants represent non-governmental organisations and 3,704 - medias.

700 cities from around the world agreed to cover all their energy needs from renewables by 2050

The contributions submitted by national governments ahead of the COP21 will limit the average global temperature rise to around +3°C; far from the objective of +2°C. Seven hundred city mayors from around the world met in the margins of the COP21 at the Paris town hall on Friday to pursue a more ambitious agenda than that supported by their national governments.

Major cooperative initiatives launched at COP21 under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda Focus on Energy

Recognizing that transformation of the global energy system forms the backbone of climate action, hundreds of governments, businesses, and cities are making strong commitments to accelerate the energy transition. With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goal 7 on energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy access, the international community set itself a clear roadmap towards a clean energy, sustainable future.

New UNFCCC report reveals huge policy potential for greenhouse gas emission reduction

A new report, published by The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate,  presents best practice climate policies from across the world and describes existing opportunities to immediately scale up reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while powering up ambition to keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.