Global stocktake of climate efforts will be a critical moment of truth
The most critical climate summit since the Paris Agreement set the world the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will take place in less than a month in the UAE – one of the world’s most oil-dependent countries.
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Cop28 will carry out the first global stocktake of long-term commitments and actions by individual nations.
This inventory will identify where progress is being made and where the biggest gaps lie, and it will pinpoint what must be done so that the Paris treaty – signed eight years ago – can succeed.
With extreme weather, water scarcity and food insecurity already realities, and with countless studies warning that catastrophic tipping points are approaching, it’s clear the Cop28 heath-check will be a difficult moment of truth.
A draft stocktake report – which was released by the United Nations last week and will be used as a blueprint at Cop28 – said the 1.5C target would only be achievable if the world increased its emissions-cutting pledges by a further 20.3-23.9 billion tonnes by 2030.
Already off-course
UN estimates have already warned that existing pledges have the world on a trajectory of 2.5C of warming this century – despite a huge increase in the number of countries setting climate targets in recent years.
Governments will be expected to raise their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – next due in 2025 – so the world can course-correct and stay within the 1.5-degree limit needed to stave off the most disastrous impacts of climate change.
This means ratcheting up efforts to unprecedented levels over the next five or six years, and ensuring that carbon-slashing measures are woven into the fabric of a country's entire economy, not in just certain sectors.
Transboundary hazards
A "cascading blind spot" in climate policy are so-called transboundary risks – climate hazards that can cross national borders, continents and oceans to impact communities in other parts of the world – a report by the EU-funded Adaptation Without Borders (AWB) partnership warned.
Like viruses, transboundary risks expose people to significant hazards they may be either unaware of or ill-prepared for, says Richard Klein, an expert in international climate adaptation at the Stockholm Environment Institute, a founding partner of AWB.
"At least since Covid we know that we're all connected. What happens in one part of the world can easily affect people and economies in other parts of the world," Klein told RFI – adding that until now transboundary climate risks haven't really been considered in the adaptation policies of individual nations.
To illustrate the urgent need for a shift in thinking, researchers have sought to pinpoint potential food security risks, for example, by combining climate data with food production and food trade data to identify hotspots and dependencies between countries.
Those with open economies that rely heavily on imports and exports are particularly exposed.
Who's responsible?
"In Senegal in 2008-2009 there were food riots and political instability as a result of the very high price of rice that was the result of a drought in a different continent," Klein offers as an example.
"So we're looking at what could be done differently ... and the first question is whose job is it? Should Thailand [the world’s biggest rice exporter] or India have done something differently; should Senegal have have been better prepared for for an eventuality like that?"
This is where the politics and climate policy comes in. Is it the duty of the World Food Programme, the World Bank or the European Commission to take charge?
Political will
For this reason the global stocktake process isn’t just an exercise in statistics; it’s also intended to help with efforts to address long-standing problems in global climate governance and to bridge the science with political will.
It aims to help get countries on the same page in places like Africa, where some governments are championing a renewable-powered future while others are still defending their reserves of fossil fuels.
Efforts are also being made to deepen climate policy by giving more functional roles to non-profit and private groups that work independently of governments.
"We are calling for stronger and more focused international cooperation on transboundary climate risks," Klein says – including having countries report on the risks that worry them, and identify what can collectively be done to reduce those risks.
The global stocktake will take place every five years.
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