A brief history of Climate Policy and why there is still hope

The global climate is in bad shape. At only 1.1°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, global weather patterns are already changing, extreme weather events have become more frequent and more severe, oceans are heating and acidifying, entire areas of land are in danger of becoming uninhabitable, harvests are decreasing, and people are dying. We face a multitude of environmental crises with several parts of the Earth′s system are at risk of crossing irreversible Climate Tipping Points. And yet, global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, leading to ever-increasing climate change, making the situation even worse. Regarding all this, one might get the impression that global Climate Policy is still not working after more than 30 years. But that would be a fallacy as there has been tremendous political progress on global Climate Action since the late 1980s. In this article, I first summarize the current state of the global climate, then give a brief overview of the history of Climate Policy and finally argue why there is still hope of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

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The current state of the climate

With “alarm and serious concern”, the first Global Stocktake held on COP28 noted, inter alia, “that human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming of about 1.1°C” and that “human-caused climate change impacts are already being felt in every region across the globe, with those who have contributed the least to climate change being most vulnerable to the impacts, and, together with losses and damages, will increase with every increment of warming” (UNFCCC, 2023a: 3).

Earlier last year, the 2023 UNEP Emissions Gap Report forecasted that global warming by the end of the 21st century could hit up to 2.9°C (UNEP, 2023). Such a stark warming compared to pre-industrial times, would not only cause much more devastating extreme weather events than already happen in the present but would also very likely cause the crossing of multiple Climate Tipping Points and lead to even more dangerous climate change (Lenton et al., 2023). Yet, at only 1.1°C of global warming, the state of the global climate is already serious with many records broken again in 2023, e.g., the warmest year on record, warmest 10-year period on record, record sea surface temperature and sea level rise, record low Antarctic sea-ice, as well as devastating extreme weather events that caused extensive loss and damage in many countries (WMO, 2023a). Just recently, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (2024) also reported that not only January 2024 was the warmest on record again, but that globally the world has thus experienced for the first time a 12-month-period of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

To return to a path consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak “at the latest before 2025” and “requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050” (UNFCCC, 2023a: 5). Otherwise, there is a 50% probability, that global warming will hit 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels already by 2030 (Lamboll et al., 2023).

Now, COP28 may have set the signal for these necessary emission cuts. For the first time, nearly 200 nations agreed to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science” (UNFCCC, 2023a: 5).

The current state, however, is yet by far not as promising as this historic agreement might suggest. In 2022, global greenhouse gas emissions have reached a new record high again and for 2023 this trend seems to continue (WMO, 2023b; Friedlingstein et al., 2023). Even more, in 2030, 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries, “still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels [...] than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C” (SEI et al., 2023: 4).

So even if there is some reason for hope, the current outlook seems rather bleak. Nevertheless, we should be optimistic, because a lot has happened in Climate Policy since the late 1980s, when climate change first became a political issue.

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A brief history of Climate Policy

The First World Climate Conference (WCC-1) took place from 12 to 23 February in Geneva in 1979 (UNFCCC, 2000). It was, however, essentially a scientific meeting that did not attract any political attention (Bodansky, 2001). Still, it was an important meeting with almost 400 scientists from more than 50 countries having discussed the possible impacts of climate change on human activities. In a joint declaration, the organizers, inter alia, called on nations “to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity” (WMO, 1979: 1). Furthermore, they called for support of a proposed World Climate Programme (WCP), which was established swiftly after WCC-1 (WMO, 2009). Looking back, the WCP became crucial in building knowledge and activities on climate change.

During the following years, scientific evidence and consensus for climate change increased significantly and particularly in the second half of the 1980s, several intergovernmental conferences on climate change followed – e.g., the Villach Conference (1985), the Toronto Conference (1988), the Ottawa Conference (1989), the Hague Conference and Declaration (1989) – that raised both international awareness and concern on the issue (WMO, 2009; UNFCCC, 2000).

The period from 1988 to 1990 marked an important transition as politics first became involved and actively engaged in discussions and negotiations about climate change (WMO, 2009; Bodansky, 2001). In 1988, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution ‘Protection of Global Climate for Present and Future Generations of Mankind’ clearly expressed the conviction “that climate change affects humanity as a whole and should be confronted within a global framework so as to take into account the vital interests of all mankind” (UN, 1988: 133).

Also in 1988, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Its initial task […] was to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change; the social and economic impact of climate change, and potential response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate” (IPCC, 2024).

However, it was not until the 1990s that climate change became a political issue (Bodansky, 2001). Highly influential for this development was the release of the First Assessment Report (FAR) by the IPCC in 1990 (IPCC, 1990). It confirmed the scientific evidence for climate change and made available to governments the current state of climate change knowledge (WMO, 2009; IPCC, 1990). One particular goal of the FAR (as of every following IPCC report) was to enable “governments to base their policy decisions on the most up-to-date information available” (UNFCCC, 2000).

Also in 1990, the Second World Climate Conference (WCC-2) took place from 29 October to 7 November in Geneva. This conference demonstrated the tremendous progress that had been made since WCC-1 in 1979. WCC-2 was no longer just a scientific meeting; ministerial sessions with more than 900 participants from 137 countries also took place on the last two days of the conference (WMO, 1991). In addition, 466 media representatives were accredited to cover the conference. WCC-2 looked at a decade of the World Climate Programme and it also paved the way for the upcoming UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (WMO, 2009). “The five-page Ministerial Declaration from WCC-2, which was adopted by consensus, after lengthy negotiations on the final day, represented the most broadly based call thus far for cooperative international action on the climate change issue” (ibid.: 145).

In 1992, after just 15 months of negotiations, at the first ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro, the landmark United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by 154 states and the European Community and entered into force on 21 March 1994 (WMO, 2009; UNFCCC, 2000). Today, the UNFCCC is ratified by 197 states plus the European Union and has thus “near-universal membership” (UNFCCC, 2024a). The UNFCCC laid the foundations for various international climate negotiations as well as landmark agreements such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement. “The ultimate objective of this Convention […] is to achieve […] stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner” (UN, 1992: Art. 2). The Convention acknowledges the basic ‘principle of common but differentiated responsibilities’ of individual countries in addressing climate change. Accordingly, the Convention divides countries into three main groups according to differing commitments: Annex I Parties (1992 OECD countries plus countries with economies in transition), Annex II Parties (developed countries with special financial responsibilities – all Annex I Parties except for those in transition) and Non-Annex I Parties (developing countries). To achieve the ‘ultimate objective’ of the Convention, Annex I Parties made a non-binding commitment to reduce their CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 (UNFCCC, 2024a).

The next cornerstone of international climate policy was laid in 1995 with the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) in Berlin held under the auspices of the UNFCCC (UNFCCC, 2000). Delegates from 117 Parties and 53 Observer States met to discuss climate change. They were joined by more than 2.000 observers and journalists. The Parties to the UNFCCC agreed to meet annually and to further substantiate the UNFCCC (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2023a). Against the protest of the fossil-fuel lobby, the Berlin Mandate was adopted, which required Parties to initiate talks to reduce emissions beyond 2000 through quantitative objectives and specific deadlines. The Berlin Mandate became necessary as commitments of Annex I Parties to reduce their emissions by the year 2000 to 1990 levels were found to be insufficient for meeting the Convention's ‘ultimate objective’ (Boisson de Chazournes, 2008). “In general, while not overly impressive, COP1 was appreciated as the first step in raising ambition on coordinated global Climate Action” (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023: 24).

Later in 1995, the Second Assessment Report (SAR) was adopted by the IPCC and published in 1996 (IPCC, 1996). One remarkable conclusion in its Summary for Policymakers was that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” (ibid.: 22). The anthropogenic origin of climate change was thus becoming more and more recognized and accepted even in international politics. What was still uncertain – and thus largely underestimated –, however, was the magnitude of impact and the speed of climate change. Nevertheless, it was now broadly unequivocal that something had to happen.

And that should have happened in 1997 at COP3 with the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol was a result of the negotiations initiated by the Berlin Mandate and extended the UNFCCC (Boisson de Chazournes, 2008). “The Kyoto Protocol was the world’s first legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities’, the Protocol mandated that 37 industrialized nations plus the European Community cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 per cent below 1990 levels [in the first commitment period 2008-2012], and established a system to monitor countries’ progress” (UN, 2022).

The Kyoto Protocol also introduced three market-based mechanisms to enable countries to meet their respective emissions targets: International Emissions Trading, Clean Development Mechanism, and Joint Implementation. “These mechanisms ideally encourage GHG abatement to start where it is most cost-effective, for example, in the developing world. It does not matter where emissions are reduced, as long as they are removed from the atmosphere” (UNFCCC, 2024b). The European Union and its member countries (the ‘EU-15’) committed themselves under the Kyoto Protocol to a joint reduction target of 8% compared to 1990 levels (European Commission, 2024). Taking advantage of a scheme under the Protocol known as a ‘bubble’, the joint target of the ‘EU-15’ was redistributed into national targets, such that, e.g., Germany had to reduce its emissions by 21%.

But even if the Kyoto Protocol ultimately became a success [which is, however, quite controversial], the negotiations following its adoption were very complex and lasted many years, especially since various technical questions, e.g., the inclusion of natural sinks such as forests in the emissions budgets, had not yet been finally resolved in 1997 (UNFCCC, 2024b). In 2000, the Protocol was even seriously jeopardized and as no final agreement could have been found led to an interruption of COP6 in The Hague (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; Boyd & Schipper, 2002; Ott, 2002). In addition, the United States withdrew from the Protocol in March 2001, largely because developing countries, primarily China and India, had no commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Vespa, 2002).

However, the withdrawal of the United States gave new impetus to the entire process of the Protocol (UN, 2001; Ott, 2002). COP6 was resumed in Bonn in July 2001 and largely due to the EU’s leadership the resulting Bonn Agreement marked a breakthrough on many critical issues, e.g., the role of natural sinks. Later that year, at COP7 in Marrakesh, the Kyoto Protocol was finally ready for ratification after more than four years of hard negotiations. With the adoption of the Marrakesh Accords, even the last outstanding questions were ultimately clarified. “The Marrakesh Accords represent the final breakthrough of the Kyoto Protocol and its cooperative approach to global climate policy. After the near-death of the Protocol at The Hague […], its resurrection in Bonn and Marrakesh is certainly one of the biggest victories for international environmental policy ever” (Ott, 2002: 11). And quite remarkable: At the end of 2001, the EU had established its reputation as a pioneer in the fight against global climate change (Boyd & Schipper, 2002).

The final entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, however, happened first in 2005 because since the US had left the Protocol it was dependent on Russia to ratify the agreement to fulfill the necessary condition of covering at least 55% of global 1990 emissions (UN, 2022).

Looking back, the targets of the Kyoto Protocol for the first commitment period (2008-2012) were not only achieved but even far exceeded. Instead of the targeted average of 5%, GHG emissions from everyone involved had fallen by more than 22% by 2012 compared to 1990 (UNFCCC, 2020a). However, this development was not only due to the measures taken by the Protocol to reduce emissions but also to other political developments, such as the financial crisis or the collapse of the Eastern European economies after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc (bpb, 2020). When viewed globally, the picture was even quite different. The USA, which had withdrawn from the Protocol in 2001, as well as various emerging countries, especially China and India, had meanwhile increased their GHG emissions so much that by 2012 global annual GHG emissions had increased by a total of 39% compared to 1990 (Ritchie et al., 2023).

During the almost eight years it took from the adoption (1997) of the Kyoto Protocol to its entry into force (2005), the Third Assessment Report (TAR) was published in 2001 (IPCC, 2001). TAR once again summarized the current state of knowledge on climate change and emphasized that there “is now stronger evidence for a human influence on the global climate” (ibid.: 137). It also included for the first time a new graphic titled Reasons For Concern which showed in five columns the likeliness of 1. Risks to unique and threatened systems, 2. Risks from extreme climate events, 3. Distribution of impacts, 4. Aggregate impacts, and 5. Risks from future large-scale discontinuities, each depending on the degree of global warming (cf. ibid.: 11). TAR also explicitly warned of Climate Tipping Points for the first time, stating that “Greenhouse gas forcing in the 21st century could set in motion large-scale, high-impact, non-linear, and potentially abrupt changes in physical and biological systems over the coming decades to millennia, with a wide range of associated likelihoods” (ibid.: 14).

Six years after TAR, the IPCC published the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007 (IPCC, 2007). As already in previous reports, it summarized the current state of knowledge on climate change based on thousands of peer-reviewed scientific publications and not only confirmed previous findings but also underscored that: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level” (ibid.: 2). In addition, the five Reasons For Concern were assessed stronger in AR4 than in TAR “due to more precise identification of the circumstances that make systems, sectors, and regions especially vulnerable and growing evidence of the risks of very large impacts on multiple-century time scales” (ibid.: 19).

Since the Kyoto Protocol was limited in time (2008-2012) and did not include developing countries, a future climate change regime had to be negotiated (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). This negotiation process was officially set at COP13 in Bali in 2007 with the Bali Road Map and its centerpiece, the Bali Action Plan. It targeted COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 for an outcome and was centered on four building blocks: Mitigation, Adaptation, Technology, and Financing. In addition, it was agreed to negotiate a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, including a long-term goal for emission reductions (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; UNDP, 2008). Looking back, the “Bali Action Plan was highly ambitious. In terms of the time lines it spelled out, it may have been overly optimistic, and underestimated the complexity both of climate change as a problem and of crafting a global response to it” (UNFCCC, 2024c). In parallel to the negotiations of the Bali Action Plan, Parties to the Kyoto Protocol also discussed a second commitment period beyond 2012.

Despite two years of preparation, the negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 started with contradicting expectations of various Parties and after two weeks of ever-growing mistrust and disappointment almost ended in turmoil (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). Parties, finally, were not able to agree on legally binding commitments but only ‘noted’ the so-called Copenhagen Accord to at least avoid total failure of the gathering (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; Third World Network, 2010; The Guardian, 2009a). But what happened?

After almost two weeks of negotiations in Copenhagen, many disputes were still unresolved (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2009a). In an attempt, to reach a last-minute agreement, 30 leaders of key countries met in an emergency meeting on Thursday evening. These talks continued until Friday morning without progress as China and India were not interested in reaching a consensus. US President Barack Obama, who arrived on Friday morning at COP15, immediately joined the negotiations, focused on smaller groups to talk to and during the day bilaterally talked to Chinese President Wen Jiabao twice. In the evening, after the second meeting with Jiabao, he finally announced that they had found an agreement.

But then China insisted that Europe should lower its emission targets. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had earlier proposed an 80% reduction target for developed countries by 2050 compared to 1990. However, China rejected this proposal as unacceptable even though it only applied to developed countries. The presumed reason for this decision was that China, which was growing rapidly economically at that time, could also have been asked to commit, but was unwilling to commit to such an ambitious target. Merkel, as she abandoned the target called this process: “Ridiculous.”

After a few more hours and contentious negotiations, a final document was released just before midnight (The Guardian, 2009a). But that agreement brokered mainly between the US, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa, excluded the majority of the 192 nations participating COP15, and therefore sparked even more frustration and disappointment (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2009b). Still, on Saturday night, Tuvalu, a small island country located in the Pacific and particularly vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise, announced that it could not accept the agreement because limiting global warming to 2°C, as agreed in the document, would cause the island country to sink within decades (Der Spiegel, 2009).

Therefore, at the beginning of the final plenary session early on Saturday morning, even the last-minute agreement, which was only vaguely worded and short on detail, was seriously jeopardized (Der Spiegel, 2009; The Guardian, 2009a). Bolivia and Venezuela joined the protest of Tuvalu as the Danish chairman Lars L?kke Rasmussen proposed only 60 minutes to consider the agreement. Sudanese representative Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping even went so far as compare the agreement to the Holocaust: “The pact would be a suicide pact to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries, is devoid of morality and based on values that got 6 million in Europe into furnaces” (Third World Network, 2010: 61).

But this incredible statement not only led to widespread outrage among participating nations but also created a new momentum in favor of the agreement. Negotiations continued, but as Rasmussen finally had to agree with Cuba that “there is no consensus and we cannot adopt this draft”, the agreement and thus COP15 was on the brink of failure (ibid.: 62). Only because the British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, called for an adjournment at the last second, the conference did not collapse (The Guardian, 2009a). During the break, Rasmussen was forced to leave the chair and a technical compromise was finally found. The Copenhagen Accord was noted by the Parties without any legally binding commitments.

Even though the Accord was by far not as ambitious as was hoped for, it also encompassed some positive aspects (UNFCCC, 2009). For the first time, the Parties of the UNFCCC agreed on a global warming target of 2°C to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (Geden, 2010; UNFCCC, 2009). However, limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as was earlier proposed by Tuvalu and other developing countries, was only mentioned as an option for a strengthening of the envisaged long-term goal in 2015. The Copenhagen Accord also called for quantified emission targets from both developed as well as developing countries, thus shifting away from the Kyoto Protocol regime. Another key agreement of the Accord regarded the short- and long-term financing of Climate Action in developing countries. Developed countries committed to fund US$ 30 bn annually for the period 2010-2012 and a further US$ 100 bn annually from 2020.

But even if COP15 was not a complete failure, more than two decades of efforts to fight climate change had hit rock bottom in Copenhagen. At COP16 a year later in Cancún, Mexico, the main focus was on saving the multilateral system at all (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2010). In the end, it was agreed, inter alia, to further negotiate on a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, although Russia, Japan and Canada had already declared not to participate again. In addition, the promise to fund US$ 100 bn annually from 2020 to support developing countries was reinforced by the decision to establish the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as an additional instrument to help developing countries mitigate GHG emissions and adapt to climate change. However, it remained unclear how the GCF would be financed. The remaining questions at the end of COP16 were according to UNEP (2010: 1): “Who will agree to what level of emissions reduction commitments within a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and beyond? What will be the fundamental role of markets? Where will the money for developing countries come from? How will it be disbursed? How will developing countries ‘chip in’?”

To overcome “the continued failures of international negotiations since 1997”, at COP17 in Durban in 2011, calls increased significantly for bottom-up approaches regarding voluntary commitments to reduce emissions (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023: 112). Led by the EU, a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon the condition that in addition parallel negotiations were to start “to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” to commit all Parties under the Convention (UNFCCC, 2024d; f; Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). This document should have been ready at the latest by 2015 and come into effect from 2020. After hard negotiations particularly with China and India, but also with the US, an agreement was achieved and a new working platform – the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action – was established. Progress was also made with the Green Climate Fund, for which a management framework was adopted.?

In Durban, thus, not only the pieces left on the ground in Copenhagen two years earlier had been picked up again but the differentiation existing since the resolution of the Convention in 1992 between developed and developing countries was finally overcome with the prospect of a new global climate treaty in 2015. Even though there were still many differences between many countries, the political will to address climate change commonly was revived in Durban.

The details of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol were tailored one year later at COP18 in Doha (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). With the Doha Amendment, participating Annex I Parties plus the EU committed to reducing GHG emissions by at least 18% compared to 1990 between 2013 and 2020 (UNFCCC, 2024b). The Amendment entered into force on 31 December 2020 but immediately ended on the very same day. Even though the outcome of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol was largely symbolic – only 15% of global emissions were covered –, the entry into force even on the last possible day was “an important signal of multilateral commitment” especially, given the negotiations for the envisaged 2015 agreement (UNFCCC, 2020b; Politico, 2020).

The most contentious talks at COP18, however, centered around Climate Finance. It was agreed that between 2013-2015, finance should equal or exceed the average annual level of the 2010 to 2012 period (UNFCCC, 2024e). Yet, since there was still too little progress on that issue, especially from the US, developing countries were instead given the concession to include for the first time the topic of Loss & Damage in the final text. This concession was quite remarkable because the topic had long been “avoided as it was associated with developed countries compensating developing countries for unpredictable damage from extreme weather related to climate change” (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023: 124).

However, the key focus of COP18 in Doha and the subsequent COP19 and COP20 in Warsaw and Lima was clearly on the negotiations on the new global climate treaty, scheduled for COP21 in Paris 2015 (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). COP19 talks focused also on how to deal with the issue of Loss & Damage, i.e. how to detail and implement a respective mechanism, and, once more, on the long-standing differentiation between developed and developing countries and their respective contributions (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2013). Talks in Lima at COP20 then specifically dealt with the details of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) from developed and developing countries, which were to be communicated well before COP21 (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2014). Although many contentious issues were still left unresolved in the final text, the Lima Call for Climate Action became a solid basis for the final negotiations one year later in Paris.

On the road along to Paris, the IPCC published the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014/2015 (IPCC, 2014). AR5 left no doubt stating: “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems” (ibid.: 2). For climate modelling and research, four new scenarios were used in AR5. The so-called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) described four different GHG concentration trajectories – a business-as-usual scenario with very high GHG emissions (RCP8.5), two intermediate scenarios (RCP6.0 and RCP4.5) and a stringent mitigation scenario (RCP2.6) – covering the period between 1850 and 2100. “The scenarios are used to assess the costs associated with emission reductions consistent with particular concentration pathways (ibid.: 57). RCP2.6 was likely (p ≥ 66%) to keep global warming below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Roughly 300 baseline and more than 900 mitigation scenarios were assessed by the IPCC.

For the first time, AR5 also discussed Geoengineering as a means of limiting global warming. “Geoengineering refers to a broad set of methods and technologies operating on a large scale that aim to deliberately alter the climate system to alleviate the impacts of climate change” (ibid.: 89). Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) played a major role in many mitigation scenarios while Solar Radiation Management (SRM) was not included in any of the mitigation scenarios. Regarding the Reasons For Concern, AR5 confirmed the findings of AR4 summarizing that: “Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally” (ibid.: 17).

Still under the impression of the findings of AR5, COP21 started on 30 November 2015 in Paris. Expectations were high to come up with a legally binding global treaty, but the challenges were even higher. However, against all odds and especially thanks to the very well-organized preparation from the French diplomatic community and smart leadership throughout the conference it succeeded and on 12 December 2015 the historic Paris Agreement was adopted (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; UNFCCC, 2015). 195 nations plus the European Union agreed to limit global warming “to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change” (UNFCCC, 2015: Art. 2).

In order to achieve this overarching goal, it was further agreed “to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible […] and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century” (ibid.: Art. 4). Each Party was asked “to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), which “will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution” (ibid.). Other objectives addressed in the Paris Agreement, inter alia, encompassed, Reforestation (ibid.: Art. 5), GHG Emissions Accounting (ibid.: Art. 6), Adaptation (ibid.: Art. 7), Loss & Damage (ibid.: Art. 8), Climate Finance (ibid.: Art. 9), Technology Transfer (ibid.: Art. 10), Capacity Building (ibid.: Art. 11), and the Global Stocktake (ibid.: Art. 14), which will assess every five years the collective progress of the global community beginning in 2023.

The Paris Agreement was a landmark breakthrough which The Guardian (2015a) even headlined as the ‘world's greatest diplomatic success’. But it was also a necessary success to keep the whole UN process in the fight against global warming, established in 1992 with the adoption of the UNFCCC, literally alive. If the negotiations in Paris had failed like those in Copenhagen six years earlier, collective global efforts would have been at an end (The Guardian, 2015b). So, Paris was the last chance to find an agreement and due to the collective will to find such an agreement it was taken.

However, like any other compromise, the Paris Agreement, which entered into force already on 4 November 2016, was not perfect. And since it was adopted, it has also been criticized. The agreement, inter alia, would “not go far enough”, and could “become an empty shell” or “represented only the lowest common denominator” (DW, 2015). If all NDCs made by the Parties to the Paris Agreement were implemented, global warming by the year 2100 would have still hit at least 3.0°C (UNEP, 2016). Yet, to overcome this gap, each Party was asked to strengthen its contribution over time. In this way, “the agreement […] depends on political will, with countries setting their own Climate Action plans” (The Guardian, 2015b). And it was this fundamental bottom-up approach why the Paris Agreement had been adopted at all.

The following COP22 in Marrakech was the starting point for three years to work out the many details of the Paris Agreement and to find ways how to implement them (C2ES, 2016). This extensive set of decisions became known as the Paris Rulebook. The crucial topic at COP22, however, was the election of Donald Trump as the new US President on the second day of the conference. During his campaign, he had declared, inter alia, that “man-made climate change is a hoax devised by the Chinese government” and announced “to cancel the Paris Agreement” in case of his election (BBC, 2016). Not only declared many governments after the election of Donald Trump that they would further support the Paris Agreement, but also confirmed several US states as well as numerous US cities and companies that they would continue to fight climate change (The Guardian, 2016a; b).

In 2017, Donald Trump then officially announced to withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2017). However, the withdrawal only came into force in November 2020. Later in 2017, COP23 passed as a technical summit with only slow progress in working out the Paris Rulebook. The main outcome of the conference was the launch of the Talanoa Dialogue, a process to take stock of what had already been done on Climate Action and to come up with strengthened NDCs until 2020 (UNFCCC, 2024f).

2018 then became a truly remarkable year for global Climate Action in many different ways. In Stockholm, the then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg started her ‘Skolstrejk f?r klimatet’, which within just a few months led to the formation of a global youth movement, soon named Fridays for Future (Fopp et al., 2021). The IPCC (2018) published a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5), comparing the impacts of climate change of a 1.5°C warmer world with a 2°C warmer world. And at the end of 2018, at COP24 in Katowice, the Paris Rulebook was set to be finalized (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023).

In SR1.5 the IPCC concluded, inter alia, that “Climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present, but lower than at 2°C” (IPCC, 2018: 5). It also stated that “Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C” (ibid.: 9). And in addition, “Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems” (ibid.: 15).

The results of SR1.5 were also an important issue at COP24 but led to a notable setback early on in the conference. The US together with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait rejected to ‘welcome’ the IPCC Special Report and its findings, even though nearly all nations agreed on that proposal (Germanwatch, 2019; Heinrich B?ll Stiftung, 2019). The damage was thus done and left a bitter taste for the rest of the conference. A compromise was finally found in the final text but encompassed no “clear reference to the global emissions still possible to emit by 2030” to limit global warming to 1.5°C (Germanwatch, 2019).

Negotiations on the Paris Rulebook remained contested after a year of preparation within the Talanoa Dialogue. Crucial aspects like the issue of Carbon Markets or the inadequacy of countries’ current national targets were ignored or postponed to COP25 (The Guardian, 2018). However, the Katowice Climate Package built a solid foundation for the implementation of the Paris Agreement on a national level (Germanwatch, 2019; The Guardian, 2018).? Among many other aspects, the most crucial agreement was on a common transparency framework of standards on how countries should measure, report and verify their GHG emissions (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; Germanwatch, 2019). Such a common framework was important to produce reports of equal quantitative and qualitative value and to come up with new and more ambitious NDCs (Germanwatch, 2019).

Throughout the year 2019, the global youth movement Fridays for Future organized several climate strikes around the world and in September even the first Global Climate Strike with millions of people protesting for more ambitious Climate Action (Fridays for Future, 2024). Following the first Global Climate Strike, UN Secretary-General António Guterres hosted the 2019 Climate Action Summit to also focus public attention on the urgent need to effectively address climate change and to reinforce “the global understanding that 1.5℃ is the socially, economically, politically and scientifically safe limit to global warming by the end of this century” (UN, 2019a). He called on world leaders to not “come to the Summit with beautiful speeches” but “with concrete plans? – clear steps to enhance nationally determined contributions by 2020 – and strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050” (UN, 2019b). 70 countries committed to delivering more ambitious NDCs by the end of 2020 (UN, 2019c). Those countries, however, only accounted for less than 10% of global GHG emissions.

As a consequence of the broad social demands for more ambitious Climate Action, the European Parliament ahead of COP 25 declared a climate and environmental emergency in Europe and globally on 28 November (European Parliament, 2019). It urged the European Commission to align all relevant legislative and budgetary proposals with the 1.5°C target. In a separate resolution, the Parliament also urged all EU countries to cut GHG emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 become climate-neutral by 2050. About two weeks later, on 11 December, the incoming president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the European Green Deal, an ambitious set of proposals to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent in the world by 2050 (European Commission, 2024).

But even though there were steps in the right direction, such as the European Green Deal, the social demands did not translate into more ambitious Climate Action at COP25 in Madrid, where only slow progress was achieved (The Guardian, 2019). Still, no consensus was found on the implementation of Art. 6 (Carbon Markets) of the Paris Agreement and only thanks to the efforts of the so-called High Ambition Coalition a compromise was reached to call for updated and enhanced NDCs already by 2020, instead of 2025 (Germanwatch, 2020; The Guardian, 2019). In addition, the issues of Loss & Damage as well as Climate Finance were discussed without real progress. Altogether, COP26 was marked as a colossal failure (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023; The Guardian, 2019).

At the end of 2019 and still at the beginning of 2020, there was, however, a feeling that a Social Tipping Point for really ambitious Climate Action had finally been reached. But then the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a couple of weeks, lockdowns were mandated all around the world (Mathieu et al., 2020). Gatherings became severely restricted, which particularly affected the global Fridays for Future movement, as these restrictions stopped the climate strikes for the time being. And even more, the pandemic became the dominant topic in the media. Public attention, thus, shifted away from the Climate Crisis and with it the huge momentum for Climate Action. Nevertheless, Fridays for Future continued to call for more ambitious Climate Action organizing digital strikes and posting photos with hashtags (The Guardian, 2020a). As restrictions were eased in the second half of 2020, climate protesters also got back on the streets following COVID-19 guidelines (The Guardian, 2020b).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, COP26 in Glasgow was postponed by one year. Instead, the United Nations, the United Kingdom and France co-convened in partnership with Chile and Italy the virtual Climate Ambition Summit 2020 to keep the momentum for Climate Action alive (UN, 2020). As in the previous year, the summit reinforced the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C and called on leaders to strengthen their NDCs to meet the three pillars of the Paris Agreement: Mitigation, Adaptation and Climate Finance.

Just a few hours after Joe Biden was sworn in as the new President of the United States, he returned his country to the Paris Agreement and put climate change as a second priority only behind the COVID-19 pandemic (The Guardian, 2021a). Still calling on leaders around the world for more ambitious Climate Action, Fridays for Future organized another Global Climate Strike in 2021 (Fridays for Future, 2024). The demands of the protesters were reinforced by the contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The main headline of this contribution, titled Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, stated: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred” (IPCC, 2021: 4). The need to act was thus urgent.

Expectations were high for COP26 to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’, especially since COP25 had not delivered on many contentious issues. With one additional year of preparation due to the postponement in the previous year, however, significantly more was achieved (Skidmore & Farrell, 2023). Probably most important was that after three years of negotiations, the Paris Rulebook was finally finalized. Unresolved issues within Art. 6 of the Paris Agreement, like double counting on emission reductions or questions concerning the regulation of the Sustainable Development Mechanism (as a successor to the Clean Development Mechanism) were sorted out (BMWK, 2024; Germanwatch, 2022a).

Not less important was the agreement on common time frames regarding future NDCs (World Resources Institute, 2021). Parties were encouraged to communicate new NDCs every five years (instead of every 10 years), and it was agreed that each new NDC from 2025 onwards should end after ten years. In addition, the Glasgow Climate Pact called on countries “to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022” (UNFCCC, 2022a: 5). That was urgently needed as Parties’ short-term goals (until 2030) was calculated ahead of COP26 to lead the world to at least 2.4°C of global warming (The Guardian, 2021b). The Glasgow Climate Pact also urged countries “that have not yet done so to communicate […] long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies […] towards just transitions to net zero emissions by or around mid-century” (UNFCCC, 2022a: 5).

Another crucial aspect of COP26 was on fossil fuels. Countries committed to “phasedown […] unabated coal power and phase-out […] inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” (UNFCCC, 2022a: 5). Even though the commitment was weakened (‘phasedown’ instead of ‘phase-out’ of unabated coal) in a last-minute intervention by India, it was still a major step forward as these issues “had never been explicitly mentioned in decisions of UN climate talks before” (UN, 2021). In addition, a voluntary initiative, the Global Methane Pledge (GMP), was launched together by the US and the EU (Germanwatch, 2022b; UN, 2021). It aimed to reduce methane emissions by 30% compared to 2020 levels by 2030. Currently, 155 countries are participants in the GMP, accounting for over 50% of global methane emissions (CCAC, 2024).

However, COP26 also failed in certain respects. Developed countries did not keep their promise of US$ 100 bn in financing for developing countries in either 2020 (US$ 80 bn) or 2021 (estimated US$ 96 bn) (BBC, 2021). The Glasgow Climate Pact noted this failure with deep regret and urged “developed country Parties to fully deliver on the USD 100 billion goal urgently and through to 2025” (UNFCCC, 2022: 6). In addition, it was agreed to start a process to develop a new and larger goal on Climate Finance for the post-2025 period set to be ready by 2024 (World Resources Institute, 2021).

On Loss & Damage, no real progress was made either. Even though COP26 finally focused on the issue, it was only agreed to operationalize and fund the Santiago Network on Loss & Damage. The focus of this network was to catalyze the technical assistance that developing countries need to effectively address Loss and Damage (UNFCCC, 2024g). No agreement, however, was achieved for a Glasgow Loss and Damage Finance Facility (Politico, 2021). The proposal led by a group of small island states was backed by many developing countries as well as China but was rejected by the US and the EU who feared vast financial liabilities. Instead, the Glasgow Dialogue was initiated to deliver answers on how to arrange funding for Loss & Damage by 2024 (Germanwatch, 2022; Politico, 2021).

During the first half of 2022, the IPCC published the contributions of Working Group II Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and Working Group III Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (IPCC, 2022a; b). The former stated, inter alia, that: “Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability” (IPCC, 2022a: 9). It also made clear that: “Levels of risk for all Reasons for Concern (RFC) are assessed to become high to very high at lower global warming levels than in AR5” (ibid.: 13). This was already the second tightening for all RFC following the adjustment in AR4 based on more precise data.

The contribution from Working Group III mainly concluded that: “Total net anthropogenic GHG emissions have continued to rise during the period 2010–2019, as have cumulative net CO2 emissions since 1850. Average annual GHG emissions during 2010–2019 were higher than in any previous decade […]” (IPCC, 2022b). But it also concluded that given certain circumstances it was still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C. “Global GHG emissions are projected to peak between 2020 and at the latest before 2025 in global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (> 50%) with no or limited overshoot […] and assume immediate action” (ibid.: 17).

Fridays for Future organized three more Global Climate Strikes in 2022 and continued to call for more ambitious Climate Action (Fridays for Future, 2024). Six weeks ahead of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, protesters from around the world demanded climate reparations and justice (The Guardian, 2022a). COP27, at least partially, delivered on those demands after contentious negotiations with a historic breakthrough on Loss & Damage (World Resources Institute, 2022; The Guardian, 2022b). After almost 30 years developed countries finally committed to establishing a fund to address future impacts of Climate Change. But how to design and eventually finance this fund had yet to be resolved.

Also contentiously debated was the goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C (instead of 2°C), as was focused upon at COP26 in Glasgow (The Guardian, 2022b). While efforts from some countries failed to abolish this stronger ambition, only incremental progress was made to curb emissions in the future. As already in the previous year, Parties were only once again requested “to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2023” to keep 1.5°C alive (UNFCCC, 2022b: 4). Equally reiterated were the calls to develop long-term strategies towards net zero emissions by or around mid-century and to phasedown unabated coal power and to phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. A renewed proposal from India to phase down all fossil fuels gained support but was finally not mentioned in the final text due to the resistance of some countries (World Resources Institute, 2022).

The Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan also emphasized “the urgent need for immediate, deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions […] including through increase in low-emission and renewable energy, just energy transition partnerships and other cooperative actions” (UNFCCC, 2022b: 3). This was the first time, a COP decision ever called for the acceleration of renewable energy (World Resources Institute, 2022). The mention of low-emission energy, however, became very controversial, as this term designated natural gas, which, however, was still a major emitter of GHG emissions.

While the agreement to set up a fund to deal with Loss & Damage was a historic breakthrough, progress on other issues related to Climate Finance, particularly regarding the deliberations about a new collective Climate Finance goal to be set up by 2024, was only incremental (World Resources Institute, 2022). However, with one notable exception: Contrary to the preliminary assumption that in 2022 developed countries would again fail on their promise to provide in total of US$ 100 bn annually to developing countries, OECD data subsequently suggested that this promise was likely met in 2022 (OECD, 2023).

COP28 in Abu-Dhabi was already controversial long before it began, as Dr Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, who also served as CEO of the UAE’s state-owned oil company ADNOC, was appointed as COP28 president (Politico, 2023). And even though it was well-known in advance that the world was not on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a key technical report on the first Global Stocktake, published by the United Nations a couple of months before the beginning of COP28, clearly warned again that although the Paris Agreement had driven action, much more had still to be done (UNFCCC, 2023b; The Guardian, 2023b). The crucial [yet not surprising] message of this report was that “achieving net zero CO2and GHG emissions requires systems transformations across all sectors and contexts, including scaling up renewable energy while phasing out all unabated fossil fuels, ending deforestation, reducing non-CO2 emissions, and implementing both supply- and demand-side measures” (UNFCCC, 2023c: 20). Thus, a clear signal was set ahead of COP28 to finally agree on language that would unequivocally demand the phase-out of all unabated fossil fuels.

The beginning of COP28 was marked by a historic decision to start up the Loss & Damage fund (World Resources Institute, 2023a; The Guardian, 2023c). The UAE and Germany each pledged US$ 100 million to finance help for developing countries which are hit by devastating extreme weather events resulting from climate change. Given, however, that by 2030, developing nations are expected to face climate-related damages of up to US$ 580 bn, these pledges can only be the beginning (Markandya & González-Eguino, 2019). Still, the agreement was an early surprise and an important step forward.

And COP28 continued to deliver breakthrough results. Most important was the agreement to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science” (UNFCCC, 2023a: 5). Even though this was not the hoped-for commitment to phase out all unabated fossil fuels, it still sent a clear signal to global markets that the ‘beginning of end’ of fossil fuels had finally arrived. Overall, the UAE Consensus called for a rapid transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. That was particularly underlined by the agreement to globally triple renewable energy capacity and to double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. In addition, Parties were also encouraged to accelerate efforts “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power” and to accelerate efforts “towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century (ibid.). And besides the official negotiations further progress was also achieved on the Global Methane Pledge (World Resources Institute, 2023b).

However, the most critical issue for years, Climate Finance, was once again not addressed (World Resources Institute, 2023c). The UAE Consensus did emphasize “the importance of reforming the multilateral financial architecture” to shift the trillions needed to address climate change and its impacts (UNFCCC, 2023c: 13). But there was still a lack of ground-breaking decisions on that issue. This was not too surprising, however, as two years ago at COP 26 in Glasgow it was agreed to tackle Climate Finance comprehensively at COP29 for the post-2025 period. To this aim, the Presidencies of COP28 as well as of the incoming COP29 and COP30 launched the COP Presidencies Troika (UNFCCC, 2024h). This mechanism, already agreed upon in the UAE Consensus, aims “to significantly enhance international cooperation and the international enabling environment to stimulate ambition in the next round of nationally determined contributions, with a view to enhancing action and implementation over this critical decade and keeping 1.5°C within reach” (UNFCCC, 2023a: 21). But as already in the previous year, developed nations at least likely delivered once again on their promise to provide in total US$ 100 bn to developing nations to deal with climate change (OECD, 2023).

Remarkable progress was also made on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) (World Resources Institute, 2023c). Already established as a concept in Art. 7 of the Paris Agreement, it took several years until COP26 to start the Glasgow-Sharm-El-Sheikh work programme to seriously deal with this issue. After two years of discussions within this programme, Parties at COP28 finally agreed on an operational framework for the GGA (World Resources Institute, 2023d). Even though the GGA did not include any quantified targets, particularly on Adaptation Finance, and also missed specific means of implementation, it was still another important step forward. To address the existing shortcomings of the GGA, a new initiative, the UAE-Belém work programme was established to deliver by 2025.

And as already in the previous year, Fridays for Future again organized two Global Climate Strikes demanding to ‘End Fossil Finance’ and to ‘End the Era of Fossil Fuels’ (Fridays for Future, 2023a; b). Five years after Greta Thunberg eventually started the global movement, tens of thousands of people were still gathering around the world to protest for more ambitious Climate Action and Climate Justice (DW, 2023).

?

Why there is still hope of limiting global warming to 1.5°C

Climate Policy has come a long way. Through the years, there have been notable setbacks but great successes, too. It began more than three decades ago as a small expert topic and has since developed into a global issue of strong public interest. Since 1992, almost 200 nations have become involved as Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), each one having its interests. Accordingly, Climate Policy has developed into a super complex issue. Not only because every Party has a voice within the UNFCCC and decisions about any little detail are thoroughly discussed and made by consensus, but also because climate change has already become an immediate threat to our well-being. Unfortunately, Climate Policy has not developed at the same speed as Climate Science. Probably because to recognize a serious problem is much easier than to solve it.

One might object at this point that the solution to climate change, however, is quite simple: Just stop using fossil fuels. But this is far more difficult than it might appear at first sight. Because the wealth of nations is built, and a large amount still depends, on fossil fuels. And it is not only the wealth of nations that is dependent on fossil fuels but (at least in developed countries) the everyday lives of most of the people. Just to stop using fossil fuels therefore seems not to be a viable option as the social consequences would be too far-reaching.

A viable option, however, is to continuously decrease the vast subsidies for fossil fuels and thus increase the price for fossil fuels while in parallel transitioning away from the dependence on fossil fuels. But such a transition, too, needs time because a nation′s whole system design cannot be switched completely within a few days or even months. For some years now, however, there have been increasing signs in Climate Policy that this transition has already begun and will soon strongly accelerate.

But still, one might object again, climate change is already a serious issue, and it does not matter what is a viable option or what is not. The consequences of only 1.1°C of global warming compared to pre-industrial levels are already devastating and will get worse with every tenth of a degree. Exceeding 1.5°C will significantly increase the risk for catastrophic outcomes, e.g. from Climate Tipping Points, and current Climate Policies are not nearly ambitious enough to meet the 1.5°C-limit but could lead to global warming of up to 2.9°C by the end of the 21st century. More ambitious Climate Action is therefore urgently needed and would even make sense economically, as Loss & Damage due to climate change already cost several billion US Dollars a year worldwide and will also increase with every tenth of a degree. Global warming of more than 1.5°C should therefore be avoided.

Now this is undoubtedly true. But it is equally true that (more ambitious) Climate Action in democratic societies requires broad social support. When millions of people took to the streets in 2019 to demand more ambitious Climate Action, a remarkable shift occurred. Suddenly, politicians around the world realized that climate change is not just a scientific issue anymore, but one that already moves masses of people. This broad social demand and the resulting media coverage were extremely important as they assured politicians of support for (more ambitious) Climate Action. And even though the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have overshadowed protests for more ambitious Climate Action over the last few years, the social demands have not fallen silent. Socially, politically, economically and even scientifically: 1.5°C is still alive. However, the ambition to pursue this goal must not be reduced but must be intensified.

The true elephant in the room of Climate Policy is Climate Finance. Who should pay for what and, above all, how much? This key issue should be thoroughly addressed at COP29 for the period between 2025 and 2030. This period will be of crucial importance for Climate Action and the question of whether or not global warming can be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as important decisions on global development in the coming decades will be made during this period. But already in 2024, the course for future decisions on more ambitious Climate Action will be set with the presidential elections in the USA, the elections to the European Parliament and the parliamentary elections in India.

Even though many years have been lost to limit global warming, it is still possible to keep 1.5°C. This is important to remember. Over the years, Climate Policy has developed into a super complex issue, and it will continue to be a tough fight, but a lot has already been achieved, particularly since 2019. The transition has begun, the course has been set, and there is no way back. It may seem that the pace of transition is still too slow, and that Climate Policy is nothing but lost in words, but that is a fallacy. Climate change is not only the biggest threat to humanity, but it is the most complex, too. A solution, thus, is not that easy to find and needs to be well-balanced in order not to overburden the people. 2015 has shown that the collective will to limit global warming is given. This will has not changed since then but is still alive.

They say hope dies last and so far, it is not dead.

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