COP 28: World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2023 lists failure to mitigate climate change and failure to take adaptation measures as the top 1 and 2 risks in their 10-year risk view
The COP28 in Dubai will, for the first time since the Paris Agreement came into being, take stock of the progress made so far. But no one is expecting any surprises; we all know the result already – a complete failure by member nations, barring a few, to act in accordance with the goals set under the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement set the goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. But we know that we are nowhere close to achieving either of those.
According to the 2023 NDC Synthesis Report by the UN, the cumulative impact of all Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) is only about 2 percent reduction in global emissions by 2030 from the 2019 level. The same report states that we need to cut emissions by 43 percent by 2030 from the 2019 emission level to stay on course for a 1.5oC limit in global warming.
Even the less ambitious below 2oC global warming limit requires emissions to be cut by 27 percent by 2030 from 2019 level. The 2023 Emissions Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme states that the current NDCs put us on track to a global warming of 2.9oC. It also states that, under the most optimistic scenario, we only have a 14 percent chance of limiting warming to 1.5oC.
This alarming state of affairs must be viewed in the context of accelerating climate change. September 2023 was the hottest recorded month with 1.8oC warming above pre-industrial level. By early October this year, we already saw 86 days with warming exceeding 1.5oC.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the atmospheric concentration of CO2 continued to grow in 2022 and 2023. The current CO2 level in the atmosphere is 419 ppm. The last time our plant witnessed a similar concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2023 lists failure to mitigate climate change and failure to take adaptation measures as the top 1 and 2 risks in their 10-year risk view. All these point to an inexplicable behaviour: while the knocking on the door by climate threat is getting louder, we seem to be growing uncomfortably numb about it.
The first global stocktake at the COP28, therefore, must lead to a course correction. We are clearly at a crossroads, the road to climate safety and the road to profits, as we head into the COP28. The high level of intent, although not backed by action, evident in the last three COPs has withered, and a combination of new geopolitical realities and short-term profit motive is taking the steam out of the Paris Agreement.
The COP28 is convening in the backdrop of member nations and many global corporations diluting, delaying, and/or backtracking their publicly announced climate commitments. We also have seen instances of coal, gas, and nuclear power receiving the green tag. Given the circumstances of the COP28, it is unrealistic to expect any commitment on winding down of fossil fuel use.
We are likely to see a doubling down on renewable energy expansion and climate adaptation, but financing them will remain a challenge. All these explain the general gloom and the lack of high expectation from this COP.
The stocktake and its expected result must not just lead to the usual call for action. This must be viewed as our last opportunity to take action to limit global warming to below 2oC and not let it reach the tipping point. When member nations submit their next round of NDCs in 2025, they must submit realistic action plans conforming to a ‘below 2oC or better’ pathway.
The plans must be vetted by experts, and those that are not aligned to the target or not realistic enough must be sent back for revising. After all the new NDCs are in place, stocktaking must be conducted every year instead of every five years; we simply cannot afford to waste another five years. Leadership is what the world needs the most in climate action now.
Playing it safe was never safe in climate action, but it has never been as unsafe and unwise as it is now.
(Bose K. Varghese is Senior Director, ESG, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.)