More Nuanced Approach Needed
As the world leaders were getting ready for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), the United Nations published a stark warning in its 2023 edition of the Emissions Gap Report. Greenhouse gas emissions reached a new high in 2022 at 57.4 GtCO2e, and in September 2023, global average temperatures were already 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels.
We have been clocking steadily warmer temperatures -- the world now experiences twice as many days over 50°C than 30 years ago -- and a new climate event is wreaking havoc every week. The first stock-take report by the UN translates this into hard data-based facts, clearly defining the urgency and leaving little room for clouded commitments. It sounds a clarion call, not just for governments and policymakers but also the urgent need to form collective leadership by industries and individuals.
The structure of COP28 has been modified to reach a wider audience – thematic days, eg: bucketing Finance/Trade /Gender Equality/ Accountability in one day while grouping Energy and Industry/Just Transition/Indigenous Peoples in another. These combinations not only help weave a narrative of global unity and collective resolve but drive home the incredible importance of an equitable transition.
Globally, the top 10 per cent of the population in terms of income accounted for nearly half the emissions with two thirds of this group living in developed countries. The bottom 50 per cent of the world population contributed only 12 per cent. This highly unequal distribution within and among countries necessitates a more nuanced approach to goal-setting, financing and technology transfers and adoption.
Fast, Flexible Finance
In the near future, with every degree of temperature increase, roughly a billion people will be pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. And the first to face the brunt are the lower income group in developing countries.
These countries lack the finance to shift to low carbon economies, only made worse by too little and hard to access climate finance support, which in itself is skewed towards the richer among them. By 2025, developing countries are estimated to need around $1 trillion annually for impactful climate investments, rising to roughly $2.4 trillion each year between 2026 and 2030.
COP28 brings together all necessary stakeholders to agree on a design to close this financing gap by harnessing a range of financial sources across public, private, domestic, and international finance.
COP28 will be a dynamic force that will shape the trajectory of our planet's future. It has the potential to propel us into a future where sustainability, resilience, and unity triumph over the challenges that loom large. But this is dependent on the collective will of nations, an ownership by governments, industries and individuals, that commits to phasing out, instead of phasing down, and ensuring the transformation is inclusive and equitable.
