COP28: Climate negotiators head to Dubai as global temperatures breach critical levels

This year the rotating presidency is held by the UAE and COP28 will be held at the Expo City in Dubai.

Global warming has started smashing temperature records at a rapid clip. Since June, every succeeding month has been the hottest on record, according to the World Meteorology Organisation.

On November 17 and 18, global temperatures may have temporarily breached the 2 degrees Celsius threshold, according to an update by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a weather forecaster of the European Union.

The landmark 2021 Paris climate pact, a legally binding international treaty, mandates containing the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees above pre industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. Breaching these critical levels could cause irreversible damage to the planet if it persists for longer periods, scientists say.

Also read: COP28 President lobbied on fossil fuel at climate meetings, BBC reports

Until the beginning of October, 86 days in 2023 were recorded with temperatures over 1.5 degrees above pre industrial levels, the United Nations Environment Programme said in its 2023 Emissions Gap report. September was the hottest recorded month ever, with global average temperatures reigning above 1.8 degrees, it said.

COP28

Climate action lagging far behind

It is in this dire backdrop that the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held in Dubai between November 30 and December 12. The signs ahead of the critical summit are not encouraging. Key reports published ahead of the gathering reveal the planet is close to irreversible climate breakdown.

The voluntary national climate action plans are insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and meet the goals of the Paris agreement, the UNFCCC said in its latest synthesis report. Even with increased efforts by some nations, including India, the report showed much more action is needed to bend the global emissions trajectory downward and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

COP28 must be a turning point, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, said in a statement. “Governments must not only agree what stronger climate actions will be taken, but also start showing exactly how to deliver them,” he said.

Also read: COP28: China is a rich country. It can no longer cry poor on climate.

After analysing the nationally determined contributions of 195 countries that are signatories to the Paris agreement, UNFCCC found that although emissions are no longer seen increasing after 2030 compared to 2019, the downward trajectory is still not enough for this decade to meet the Paris goals.

“The world is failing to get a grip on the climate crisis,” UN Secretary General, António Guterres, warned after the release of the synthesis report.

Deliberations at the Dubai summit

Issues around mobilising finance to combat the climate emergency are expected to dominate talks at COP28 at a time when even voluntary pledges by national governments continue to fall short. Rich nations and developing countries like India are likely to be at loggerheads over operationalising the loss and damage fund amid the worsening geopolitical situation due to the continuing Ukraine conflict and the war in West Asia.

There are many other contentious issues as well. The success of COP28 to be held at Expo City Dubai will be measured against how it does on its three main objectives:

The first and primary objective of this year’s summit is the global stocktake, the first assessment of whether signatory countries are on track to meet the goals set by the Paris agreement, which includes making efforts to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times, the threshold that scientists say beyond which it will be increasingly hard to cope with the impacts of the climate crisis.

Although the Earth has already warmed by 1.2 degrees, there is still hope that the review will lay the groundwork for all countries to chalk out more ambitious climate action plans.

Also read: COP28: India’s green hydrogen transition to the fore.

The second important milestone for success would be action on operationalising the fund for loss and damage incurred due to extreme climatic events. At the 2021 Glasgow summit, loss and damage were for the first time discussed at the main negotiation track due to demands made by countries that are already facing the adverse impacts of global warming.

One of the big achievements of last year’s climate conference in Egypt was a global agreement to set up a loss and damage fund to help poor nations pay for the consequences of climate change. Expectations are high that substantive progress will be made on this contentious issue this year. The going would be tough on this count. Preparatory discussions on how to set up the fund and who would run it have already broken down. There are concerns that big polluting countries like the US may walk away from the discussions. The two main questions that need to be resolved pivot around who will put up the money for the fund and which nations will be able to access the money and on what grounds.

Finally, there would have to be some kind of political agreement emerging out of the summit on ways to control emissions faster before runaway climate change. Countries have already agreed that an energy transition to renewables is the way forward. What needs to be decided is the pace and quantum. There have been suggestions to triple global renewable energy capacity in double quick time.

Also read: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend World Climate Action Summit in Dubai.

More contentious will be discussions around phasing out of fossil fuels. The summit is being hosted this year by the United Arab Emirates, whose economy is completely dependent on extracting oil. Whether major oil-producing countries and corporations would agree to pare their activities or at least reduce future investment remains to be seen. It would be interesting to track the caveats that come attached with such agreements.

Discussions at COP28 are also likely to look into workable solutions to adapt to climate change, which would include strategies to manage climate risks and building climate resilience. Any discussion on climate action will, therefore, pivot on the source of funding and the willingness of the wealthy nations to contribute to resource mobilisation.

Whether the talks translate into specific commitments is uncertain. The success of the UN-hosted summit in Dubai would largely depend on the pace of progress made on climate finance.

India’s stance in the climate talks

India for many years was on the backfoot in climate negotiations as its rapid economic progress since the 1991 reforms started to have an effect on global emissions. The developed world piled on pressure on it to take more stringent climate action, largely ignoring their historical responsibility in precipitating global warming in the first place.

India started turning the tables as it set out ambitious energy transition targets and boosted its renewable energy capacity, particularly wind and solar, at a blistering pace. Another dramatic change came during the Glasgow summit, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi unexpectedly announced that India will achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.

Also read: Ahead of COP28, climate seems conducive to collaborative efforts.

Modi also promoted an initiative called Lifestyle for Environment, or LiFE, in Glasgow, where he urged countries and people across the world to adopt a more sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle that would slow down climate change. LiFE gained traction in the Egypt summit, with many countries, both developed and developing, putting their weight behind it.

In Dubai, India is expected to continue campaigning for LiFE. Additionally, it would also push for a faster pace of replacing fossil fuel energy with renewables. The New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit during India’s presidency this year also used stronger language on issues related to the climate crisis.

The New Delhi Declaration is expected to feature prominently during the Dubai summit, with its promised goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. However, India is likely to oppose any move to phase out coal faster because of its developmental imperatives to eradicate poverty.

The US and China have recently come up with a pledge to sharply reduce methane emissions, which are seven times more warming than carbon dioxide, though it does not stay in the atmosphere for a long time, unlike carbon dioxide. Although the two highest emitters of greenhouse gases will try to promote greater acceptance of the methane pledge, India is unlikely to be enthusiastic about it, given its large livestock population and areas under paddy cultivation, two important sources of such emission.

India would instead, as a leading voice of the Global South, focus more on climate justice and insist on more fund flows to developing and emerging economies for them to be better able to mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency.