By Andrew Hammond
In typical COP fashion, Governments seized a last-minute agreement on Wednesday in summit ‘overtime’ in Dubai, including historic language on the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.
However, welcome as the new deal is, this was a summit that took a step forward, but potentially two steps backward on the overall goal to raise climate action ambition with the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal agreed in Paris in 2015 now in increasing peril. With the need for much greater results, COP28 has therefore increased calls for fundamental reform of the U.N.-led climate framework process which may no longer be fit for purpose.
A significant number of people on the ground in Dubai, including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore (a key architect of the Kyoto Treaty agreed in 1997), say the talks in the UAE nearly collapsed. Part of the problem is the event and its process.
In the last few years, the number of people attending COPs has skyrocketed from the early days when attendance averaged perhaps as few as around 5,000. Since the pandemic, however, attendance has grown dramatically turning the event into a de facto trade show with just under 40,000 at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, and around 50,000 at COP27 last year in Sharm el-Sheikh. In late November and December in Dubai, a staggering 70,000 people have been in attendance — a tripling since COP25 in Madrid in 2019.
The process has become congested, and key stakeholders like Gore propose key reforms. This includes majority-voting decisions, not unanimity, so the pace of climate action progress can be ramped up.
Welcome as Wednesday’s deal is after sometimes tense, overrunning negotiations, it offered little progress on cutting greenhouse gases in the short term. Vague language on the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target is far from enough to realize the ambitions of the Paris deal agreed in 2015.
A key question now is how best to start advancing the agenda for COP29 and COP30 in Azerbaijan and Brazil respectively. There are several answers to the question, including that negotiations should be started now with all countries prepared to get a clear agreement in late 2024 and 2025 respectively. This must include pushing key countries now to increase their ambition and submit improved pledges so there is a remaining chance of sticking to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit with a focus on phasing out fossil fuels.
Going forward, however, there is a growing question mark over the future of the COPs themselves, and whether they are the most effective way to take forward the global climate agenda. There are growing calls for a leaner, more focused forum to address key issues in hand in the remaining years of what U.S. President Joe Biden has called the “decisive decade.”
So there is merit in the UN, and key governments from the Global North and South, now considering this issue. The alternative is a type of ‘Groundhog Day’ scenario reflecting the 1993 hit movie based around the lead character played by Bill Murray being caught in a time loop, repeatedly living the same day.
In much the same way, there is a danger that COP continues to make only incremental reform when what is needed is transformational change. Indeed, an increasing number of stakeholders believe that today only a profound change in our economy and society can avoid worst-case scenarios.
With the world currently on course for disastrous warming, this pathway can potentially still be changed through proactive, concerted global action. This includes the world’s very best diplomats taking greater charge, and governments throwing their full weight behind delivering stronger outcomes.
It is no coincidence here that the most effective COP was in 2015 when France staged the most well-organised COP reaching out to nations up to a year before the Paris conference happened. This included then-foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who was in the 1980s France’s youngest-ever prime minister, showing the full range of his diplomatic skills to become the most effective ever COP president.
So now is the time for all key countries, including the world powers of the United States and China, to step up to the plate and urgently get around the negotiating table with the upcoming COP29 and COP30 hosts so that momentum can build well ahead of those summits. Moreover, the U.N. and other key actors need to assess the medium-term viability of the COP process and examine how a leaner, more focused forum could address the massive challenges of global climate action in the coming years.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
Why COP28 deal is welcome, but insufficient
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17.12.2023
By Andrew Hammond In typical COP fashion, Governments seized a last-minute agreement on Wednesday in summit ‘overtime’ in Dubai, including historic language on the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.
However, welcome as the new deal is, this was a summit that took a step forward, but potentially two steps backward on the overall goal to raise climate action ambition with the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal agreed in Paris in 2015 now in increasing peril. With the need for much greater results, COP28 has therefore increased calls for fundamental reform of the U.N.-led climate framework process which may no longer be fit for purpose.
A significant number of people on the ground in Dubai, including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore (a key architect of the Kyoto Treaty agreed in 1997), say the talks in the UAE nearly collapsed. Part of the problem is the event and its process.
In the last few years, the number of people attending COPs has skyrocketed from the early days when attendance averaged perhaps as few as around 5,000. Since the pandemic, however, attendance has grown dramatically turning the event into a de facto trade........
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