Strong Global Stocktake Crucial, COP28 Heads into Final Round of Negotiations

The UN Climate Change Summit (COP28) has entered the second week with countries still locked in crucial negotiations to conclude the first-ever Global Stocktake (GST). The final giant text will pave the way for a more ambitious round of climate targets by 2025.

A strong GST is critical to bring the world back on track to meeting the 1.5℃ goal of limiting global warming as decided in Paris in 2015. The last seven days saw a series of formal/informal sessions and high-level roundtables with world leaders putting forward their expectations on the final GST text on adaptation, mitigation and means of implementation. Over 29 Heads of State and Government, 21 ministers, 10 high-level officials, three UN organisations, and multiple non-governmental organisations spoke at these events and stressed on the urgency to act.

“Many new changes and additions to the Global Stocktake draft text have come up. The two most contentious elements are on pre-2020 gaps raised by India among other Global South countries and on whether the GST should direct more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),” said Tamanna Sengupta from New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

“For a balanced outcome, the GST must reflect past gaps and a framework for future ambition, reflecting the obligations of both developed and developing countries to act. As of now, there is little consensus.”

While some developing countries, including India, are bringing the discussion on historical emissions contributed mostly by the rich countries, the latter is focussing on the future emission pathways. The negotiations have entered the final round, following which the final draft text would be handed over to the Presidency to be announced at the end of the two-week long conference.

In its summary of events, the first GST High-Level Committee early this week emphasised that global greenhouse emissions must peak ‘as soon as possible’, and adaptation support must scale up rapidly.

The committee also highlighted the need for the second round of NDCs to be more ambitious, economy-wide, and cover all emissions and sectors. It also stressed on the urgent need to close the adaptation finance gap, estimated to be in the range of $194-366 billion per year.

While the developed countries have already been called upon to double the adaptation finance by 2025, it just remains a starting point and COP28 has so far failed to deliver much on ensuring adaptation response.

According to experts, the governments must reach an ambitious agreement on the framework of Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). But, halfway through the conference, there has been little progress in achieving any substantive outcome.

The GST negotiations focus primarily on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation. The language on phase out of fossil fuels and any tentative timelines is important, especially with wide political differences still dominating the issue. India, which depends on coal, has called for phase down of all fossil fuels, not just coal, at previous summits.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already warned that the greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 and decline 43 per cent by 2030 to limit global temperatures to 1.5°C, and an overshoot could unleash far more severe climate change impacts. The technical report on GST published ahead of COP28 in September reiterated the need to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The GST will be held every five years to inform the next round of nationally determined contributions to be put forward by 2025. The current GST started with a data collection phase in 2021 to which India also made a significant contribution, followed by a technical dialogue carried out in three meetings in 2022 and 2023.