The World Summit for Climate Action, held in Dubai as part of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, concluded on 13 December. COP28 began with news of the establishment of a new fund to address the growing losses vulnerable countries face due to climate change, and ended with the first international agreement to tackle fossil fuels as a driver of climate change. Rapidly transforming key sectors to significantly reduce emissions and respond to the current impacts of climate change was the common agenda of the participants.
The main stage of this year's COP was the Global Stocktake, organised for the first time every five years to assess progress on the Paris Agreement and mobilise stronger climate action. The Global Stocktake, dubbed the UAE Consensus, sent critical signals for energy, transport and natural resource use, and set the direction for Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) to be made in 2025.
For the first time in the 30-year history of the UN climate negotiations, the decision to move away from fossil fuels was included in the official conclusions of a COP. Participants signed an agreement signalling the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. This was a fitting close to the summit, which took place in the hottest year on record.
Outside the formal climate negotiations, significant progress was made, including new commitments to reduce methane emissions, create more sustainable food systems, protect forests and more.
Highlights of COP 28
A rapid transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is essential.
The UAE Consensus called for "a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels and to accelerate this action to achieve net zero by 2050".
The outcome also includes an agreement to triple the world's renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030. The COP statement also called on countries to accelerate emission reductions from road transport, not only through the transition to zero-emission vehicles, but also through public transport and the creation of safe cycling infrastructure.
To turn these decisions into reality, countries need to include strong targets in their next NDCs. Another critical test will be securing the finance to help make the energy transition possible for developing countries.
The Loss and Damage Fund is operational.
After months of intensive negotiations, the "Loss and Damage Fund" became operational on the first day of the Dubai summit. The fund is designed to help climate-hit countries cope with climate impacts.
Although a group of countries came to the forefront with around $700 million they provided to the fund, the amount of the fund is still far from sufficient when compared to the $580 billion climate-related damage that vulnerable countries may face by 2030.
Although loss and damage was included in the outputs of the Global Status Report, it did not take its due place as the third pillar of climate action alongside mitigation and adaptation. This remains a significant shortcoming for vulnerable communities and developing countries, which face the heaviest burden of the increasing impacts of climate change.
Framework for the Global Adaptation Goal is in place, but funding gaps have yet to be addressed.
While the 2015 Paris Agreement set a core goal to increase adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change, negotiators did not define clear targets or a framework for how performance would be measured. After two years of discussions, in COP28 agreed on temporal global targets for specific themes and sectors (such as water and health) and for the process of adaptation policy development.
These targets, set under the "Global Adaptation Goal" framework, have not yet been quantified and do not include financial and other support for developing countries. To develop the new framework, a two-year work programme was established to develop indicators to measure and assess progress towards the goals.
While the Global Adaptation Goal framework makes a cursory reference to the growing need for adaptation finance, the Global Status Report emphasises the need to significantly increase financial support, beyond the current commitment to double adaptation finance.
Financing challenges postponed until next year as new funding target emerges.
While the COP28 results left most of the financing issues to COP29, the adoption of a new climate finance target, called the New Collective Qualitative Goal (NCQG), was the most important agenda item for the coming year. This new target will replace the commitment of developed countries to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries, first agreed in 2009. The new target will need to take into account the needs of developing countries, estimated at $5.8 trillion - $5.9 trillion by 2030.
COP28 also brought an additional $3.5 billion in new commitments to the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund, the largest international fund dedicated to supporting developing countries in the fight against climate change. With the second replenishment, the fund reached $12.8 billion.
National climate commitments need to be strengthened.
The Global Status Report calls on countries to submit new NDCs well before COP30 in 2025. In the next round, countries are expected to update their 2030 targets and submit new targets for 2035. The COP28 decision underlines the need for new NDCs to be more ambitious, noting that the IPCC has found that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C requires reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 60% below 2019 levels by 2035.
The COP28 conclusions state that the next round of NDCs should build on existing actions to reduce emissions, as well as include plans and priorities for adaptation, just transition efforts and loss and damage.
Governments will start preparing their next round of NDCs in 2024. The UN Secretary-General will organise a special event in 2025 for countries to present their new commitments.
Negotiators agreed to collaborate on a "Roadmap to Task 1.5", which aims to enhance international co-operation over the next two years to secure more ambitious NDCs and secure the necessary financing to incentivise action.
Food is finally on the menu.
One hundred and fifty-nine countries, covering nearly 80 per cent of the world's land, signed the COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, committing to integrate food and food systems into their NDCs by 2025. Signatories include global players in the food system, including Argentina, Brazil, China, the EU, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the US.
The Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation (ACF) is also launched. Member countries, including Brazil, Cambodia, Norway, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, pledged a "whole-of-government" approach to mobilise faster towards the goals of the UAE declaration. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a roadmap on how to prevent climate change while eliminating hunger. COP 28 was the COP where food began to be at the centre of climate efforts.
Cities were identified as important sites for climate action.
Cities played a bigger role at COP28 than at any previous COP. The "Local Climate Action Summit", the first of its kind, brought together more than 500 mayors, governors and local leaders to showcase the role of cities in climate action. Seventy-one countries joined the Coalition for Highly Ambitious Multi-Level Partnerships (CHAMP) initiative, committing to include strong urban climate action in their NDCs and foster co-operation between local and national governments. UN-Habitat also hosted the second Ministerial Meeting on Urbanisation and Climate Change.
The COP28 agreement underlines the need for cities, the source of 70 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, to be critical climate spaces and partners for action.
Commitments and funding sources were established to reduce methane emissions.
COP28 saw encouraging action to address methane pollution, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Governments, companies and philanthropists announced over $1 billion in new grants for projects focused on reducing methane.
Five more countries joined the Global Methane Commitment - Angola, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Romania and Turkmenistan - bringing the total number of signatories to 155. These countries commit to reduce global methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 compared to 2020 levels. The US announced new regulations on methane. China committed to include methane in its next NDC.
The Global Status Report also called on all countries to accelerate the reduction of non-CO2 emissions, including methane, and encouraged them to include all greenhouse gases in their next NDCs.
Small steps forward on forests and land use COP28 showed continued political will for the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use, in which more than 140 world leaders committed to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by the end of the decade in 2021. This year, signatories issued a Joint Declaration on Climate, Nature and People, committing to increase funding, engage Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and improve data collection to tackle climate and nature crises. Numerous announcements were also made regarding new funding mechanisms that will be needed to achieve the goals of the Glasgow Declaration.
COP 28 and Turkey
Turkey has expressed its willingness to benefit from the Loss and Damage Fund for climate change-induced disasters. Turkey, one of the world's 20 most developed countries (G20), has not yet updated its climate target, which envisages increasing national greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30 percent by 2030. According to the summit decision, parties must update their 2030 national climate targets by the end of 2024 in line with the Paris Agreement.
Declarations signed by Turkey at COP28:
Declaration on Climate and Health: 143 countries pledged for the first time to establish systems to address the health impacts of climate change.
Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action: 158 countries pledged to protect food production and producers against the impacts of climate change.
Coalition of Highly Ambitious Multilevel Partnerships for Climate Action (CHAMP): 65 countries aim to collaborate with local governments and municipalities in planning, financing, implementing and monitoring climate strategies.
Initiatives that Turkey did not take part in COP28:
Global Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Commitment: 130 countries pledged to triple renewable energy and double the pace of energy efficiency efforts by 2030.
Gender Just Transition and Climate Action Partnership: 76 countries announced a gender-sensitive climate justice declaration.
Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace: 80 countries called for cooperation to increase adaptation and resilience to climate change.
Global Cooling Commitment: 66 countries aim to globally reduce emissions from cooling technologies in all sectors by at least 68% by 2050 compared to 2022 levels.
Hydrogen Declaration: 37 countries aim to develop a global renewable and low-carbon hydrogen market and certification programs.
Leaders' Declaration on a Global Climate Finance Framework: Aims to transform global finance to align with ambitious climate action.
Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA): Founded in 2017, 7 more countries joined the alliance and committed to phase out coal; Turkey was one of the 5 European countries that did not join the alliance, along with Poland, Bulgaria, Malta and Romania.
Declaration on Climate, Nature and Society: 18 countries announced a decision to work together for integrated planning and implementation of national climate, biodiversity and land restoration plans and strategies.
Coalition of Ambition on Adaptation Finance: A coalition of 13 countries announced that they will work together to facilitate access to adaptation finance and increase all sources of adaptation finance.