By: Alyssa Huffman
2023 marked the hottest year in recorded human history. With the undeniable threat of climate change causing more extreme weather events, sea level rise, and displacement of vulnerable communities, the world must come together to collectively fight against global warming. In 2015, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change convened at a yearly Conference of the Parties (COP) and established the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international agreement aimed at addressing the climate crisis. As part of the agreement, nations must develop and implement plans (called Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) to reduce net emissions and adapt to climate change. The effectiveness of these plans is reviewed every five years in a process referred to as the “Global Stocktake,” where parties evaluate collective progress towards reaching the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. Parties completed the first ever Global Stocktake at COP28 in December 2023, resulting in a twenty-one page document containing guidance for nations to revise their NDCs. I attended COP28 as an accredited observer and followed the first week of the Global Stocktake negotiations. The following are my reactions to the first week of negotiations and the resulting text, particularly related to the section on mitigation.
The first week’s negotiations were highly contentious. In particular, the discussion on the difference in responsibilities between developed and developing countries and the discussion on balance between recognition of past actions taken by nations in their NDCs and the need for stronger actions moving forward contained a broad spectrum of opinions by national delegates. While developed countries like Japan emphasized the need for mitigation efforts by all countries, developing countries like the Group of 77 (a coalition of developing countries designed to promote their collective interests) wanted recognition that certain nations are more capable of transitioning to clean energy systems and should therefore hold greater responsibility in mitigating against climate change. Developing countries also advocated for the consideration of cumulative historical emissions in measuring which nations hold the most responsibility for net global emissions. This inclusion would recognize that, while some developing countries produce significant emissions today, these emissions do not compare with the historical emissions of developed nations who already had the opportunity to pass beyond an initial industrialization stage.
The Global Stocktake both analyzes the effectiveness of past actions at mitigating climate change and proffers recommendations for nations to update their NDCs. The second large point of divergence in the first week of negotiations stemmed from whether to describe past actions in a more positive or negative light. While developed countries wanted to shed light on their efforts within their NDCs to lower emissions, other nations also expressed the need to indicate concern over the fact that the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to well below two degrees Celsius appears to be slipping further from our grasp. Nations not only diverged in how favorable the text should portray past actions, but also how many sections to include on past actions as opposed to future recommendations. In the end, the text contained three sections commending the collective progress made by past actions and then transitioned into concern and recommendations for more ambitious NDCs.
In addition to these differences between developed and developing countries, a vast range of positions emerged about how ambitious the text should be, to what temperature we should aim to limit global warming, and whether to include a phase out of fossil fuels. The array of opinions and lack of progress in reaching collective agreements culminated in the inability for the co-chairs of the first week’s negotiations to draft a third iteration of the text, instead opting to send a previous version of the text along with a compilation of all views expressed in the first week to the Presidency for further review in week two negotiations. The delegate from Malawi expressed his disappointment in the results of week one, stating, “It is unfortunate that we are stuck at this point in time when the expectation out there is so high. People believe in us, and we are letting them down. We need to do better, and I think we can do better.”
This troubling end to week one of the negotiations serves as a reflection of what many activists are beginning to question: are broad multilateral international agreements the best way forward in addressing the climate crisis? While the text on mitigation contained a historical accomplishment—acceptance of fossil fuels as the main problem causing climate change for the first time in a COP document—the text still lacks strong language requiring nations to immediately act to phase out fossil fuels. The section on mitigation calls for nations to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, but contains a number of loopholes giving nations options outside of phasing out fossil fuels to reach net zero. Some of these loopholes include: recognizing the role of transitional fuels, which allows countries to drag their feet in fully transitioning to clean energy; only requiring a phase-down of unabated coal power without naming any other fossil fuels in the phase-down requirement; including carbon capture as a viable solution, allowing nations to continue burning fossil fuels as long as they use carbon capture technology; and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, implying the existence of an efficient and allowable fossil fuel subsidy.
The contentious first week of the Global Stocktake negotiations and the resulting final text reveal a continuous failure of broad multilateral agreements to effectively mitigate climate change. Perhaps it is time to explore other avenues to limit warming and adapt communities to the new reality climate change has created. There is an emerging recognition of subnational climate efforts, where local governments implement their own plans to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Some of these governments form their own coalitions with cities facing similar climate challenges, allowing them to learn from each other’s efforts. While the future of climate action on an international scale remains uncertain given the divergence in viewpoints on how to best approach the problem of climate change, local governments serve as leaders of climate action. But while local governments are implementing mitigation and adaptation measures, those measures are insufficient without nationwide commitment to mitigation efforts. It is therefore unlikely that we will be able to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement with the current trajectory of international action. The delegate from Malawi echoes a growing sentiment: “We are not doing better. We are failing the people out there. So I expect in the next steps, we will do better.”
