Was CoP-28 a cop-out or did the conference achieve something?

The ‘climate fest’ atmosphere may have helped focus international attention in that week on the very serious threats posed by climate change. Whether it also contributed to solving the problem is another matter. UN resolutions are traditionally littered with clauses “recognizing," “noting" and “reiterating" what earlier statements have said. The UAE Consensus is no exception. The question to ask is whether, after cutting through the clutter, there is forward movement. The answer is mixed.

CoP-28 was truly unique in one respect. It was the first of the “global stocktakes" mandated by the Paris Agreement to take place every five years to record the state of progress on climate action and to serve as a “ratchet" to accelerate action if needed. The UAE Consensus has delivered fully on this score. It recognizes that the world is not on track to meet the target of limiting global warming to “below 2° C and ideally 1.5° C" above pre-industrial levels by 2100. If countries implement only their unconditional pledges, expected global warming will be +2.9° Celsius by the end of this century! If all countries actually took the actions needed to achieve their stated net-zero pledges, global warming would still be around 2.1° Celsius.

Experts have said this for some time, but the Consensus now makes it the official view of all signatory countries. The ratchet mechanism has also been triggered because all countries have been asked to consider committing to stronger steps in the new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) due by 2025 .

Much has been made of the fact that phasing out of fossil fuels is mentioned for the first time, albeit in the convoluted form of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems." This is less of an advance than made out to be, because all countries had, in CoP 26, committed to reach net zero by different years around mid-century. It was known that this could only be done by phasing out fossil fuels very substantially.

Cop-28 can be credited with some other important developments. A group of countries has agreed to treble renewable energy capacity by 2030 and to double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency. The Consensus also called for accelerated action in areas previously agreed, such as reducing non-carbon dioxide emissions, particularly methane by 2030.

The significance of these developments will only be known when new NDCs are submitted by 2025. This draws attention to the fact that the current system, in which NDCs are set voluntarily, is fundamentally flawed. It has helped galvanize some action thus far, but it will be less helpful in future because it gives individual countries no guidance on what they must do that would be consistent with a just transition.

The basic problem is that the remaining “global carbon budget" (i.e., the additional GHGs that can be added to the atmosphere) is limited. Ideally, the NDCs adopted by a country should be calibrated to its ‘fair share’ of the remaining carbon budget. CoP meetings have routinely talked of the need for a fair and just transition, consistent with the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities," but they never discussed how to apply it in practice.

If there were some way we could agree on a fair share for every country in the global carbon budget, countries could be required only to live within this share, while being left free to determine how to do it. Net zero dates would be irrelevant. A country should have the choice of reaching net zero later if it is willing to live within its budget.

It is difficult to see how agreement could be reached on a fair share for each of 198 countries. Can we perhaps reduce the scale of the task by considering whether it can be determined for the G20 countries? This group accounts for 81% of total global emissions and its composition includes fossil-fuel exporters and importers. A solution acceptable to the G20 could provide the basis for fixing shares for all countries and be accepted at a future CoP.

Perhaps the G20 troika, comprising Brazil as its current president and India and South Africa as the previous and next presidents, respectively, could propose setting up an international expert committee to suggest credible ways of distributing the remaining carbon budget among G20 countries. It will not be easy to achieve such an agreement, but if the G20 can’t do it, we will have to reconcile ourselves to moving from one CoP to another with little more than just general exhortations on the need for determined action.

Another dimension for judging the UAE Consensus is what it says about financial assistance to developing countries. The Consensus mentions the historical inequity facing developing countries because developed countries have used up a disproportionate share of the available global carbon budget. Providing adequate financial assistance is obviously one way of correcting this inequity.

Unfortunately, the Consensus has little to offer in this area. It acknowledges that the $100 billion per year by 2020 promised 14 years ago is yet to be achieved and urges that this commitment be met at the earliest. It also acknowledges contributions and commitments made to various UN climate-related funds, including the new Loss and Damage Fund that was agreed upon in principle a year ago at CoP-27.

However, the amounts involved in these UN funds are small. While they assure some flow of resources to specific areas, we cannot judge whether they actually represent additional resources or only a redistribution from an inadequate total.

The UAE Consensus notes the very large scale of additional investment that developing countries will have to undertake. But it does not offer any indication of the scale of financial assistance to be made available. It only states that the investment needed will have to be financed by a combination of domestic and international sources. The latter in turn will be a mix of private and public international flows.

The details are left to the sixth meeting of the Committee of Parties to the Paris Agreement which will be held in 2025. Developing country negotiators have their work cut out in the run-up to that meeting.

A concluding part focused on climate finance is to follow in early January.