COP28: Fauna & Flora's priorities for this year's Climate Change Conference

Fauna & Flora is attending COP28 in Dubai, which kicks off this week. The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference is an opportunity for world leaders to meet, negotiate and work together on how to address climate change. The next two weeks should be seen as an important tool in tackling the twin climate change and biodiversity loss crises, giving us the opportunity to find solutions to the biggest issues our planet faces.

Fauna & Flora is keen to ensure that the outcomes of COP28 and the first-ever Global Stocktake provide solution-orientated, actionable guidance. Our aim is to drive discussion, debate and action that delivers for not only climate, but also nature and people.

With that in mind, these are our key priorities for COP28:?

Driving rapid, deep emission cuts and phase-out of fossil fuels and harmful subsidies

We must limit global warming to 1.5°C to avoid the cascading impacts of climate change that will lead to further harm for people and nature. In order to do so, we must achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by the early 2050s, ideally with emissions peaking before 2025 and rapidly declining thereafter. It’s not just where you end up, but how you get there that matters.

Currently we are not on track to achieve a 1.5°C mitigation pathway. But, COP28, and in particular, the agreement of the Global Stocktake outcome, offers opportunities to correct this course.

?We hope to see widespread commitment to the phasing out of fossil fuel use at COP28 and are calling on parties to submit enhanced emissions targets for 2030 and 2035; responding to the clear message from scientists that action now is needed for the sake of current and future generations, and the diversity of life on Earth.

Ensuring high-integrity nature-based solutions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasises that effective conservation of a minimum of 30% of Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas would not only protect biodiversity and critical carbon sinks, but would build ecosystem resilience to the effects of climate change.

When delivered with high integrity, nature-based solutions to climate change are proven, readily scalable and cost-effective tools to support and accelerate the transition to a net zero future, while also driving positive climate, biodiversity and social impact at scale.

The Global Stocktake response, therefore, must provide guidance to countries on how they can better embed, finance and accelerate the implementation of high-integrity nature-based solutions , both terrestrial and marine, into their national action plans. Importantly, the response must amplify nature as a vital mechanism that works alongside, and not as a substitute for, rapid decarbonisation across all sectors, to progress towards the Paris Agreement goals.

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Prioritising the protection of nature’s remaining carbon sinks

The world’s most carbon-rich and biodiverse carbon sinks and stores, which aid natural climate regulation, are at risk of being lost. And once these natural resources disappear, they are irreplaceable. The more nature is degraded, the less it is able?to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the resilience of local livelihoods is also undermined.

A protection-first approach to biodiversity needs to be prioritised throughout COP28 and in the Global Stocktake output. Importantly, this protection must be in partnership with those Indigenous Peoples and local communities living closest to nature and on the frontline of climate change.

Accelerating adaptation action with communities and nature at its core ?

If we fail to respond swiftly to the impacts of climate change, everyone and everything living on this planet faces worsening and potentially unliveable conditions. We urgently need to accelerate adaptation action, with locally-led, ecosystem-based approaches playing a central role; we’re calling for the concluding processes of both the Global Stocktake and the Global Goal on Adaptation to officially recognise this.

Healthy, biodiverse ecosystems are the cornerstone of climate resilience.?

And, only by involving local communities, including indigenous and marginalised groups, in the design and implementation of adaptation action is it possible to be effective, sustainable and just. These communities have the on-the-ground knowledge of their adaptation needs and are best able to develop bottom-up, transformative solutions for their particular context. Local ownership of adaptation measures is critical for effective management and long-term sustainability.

Scaling up and directing finance to locally-led approaches

Only about 10% of climate finance currently reaches local actors in developing countries.

Fauna & Flora is a grassroots-focused organisation, committed to working with and for those closest to biodiversity and carbon-rich ecosystems. As such, alongside a rapid scaling up of climate finance commitments,? we are calling for a focus on bridging the gap between global frameworks and grassroots delivery.

As it stands, we are missing out on significant opportunities to maximise financial support to achieve benefits for local livelihoods, ecosystems, and climate action. COP28 must work to change this.

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The reality is…

The goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement will not be met without the protection and restoration of nature, and the empowerment of local people on the frontline. Global temperature rises must be kept within the 1.5C limit set out by the agreement, a goal which was agreed by nearly 200 countries. COP28 and the conclusion of the Global Stocktake presents a critical opportunity to correct the course with solutions to reverse the effects of climate change and prevent any further impact on our planet. The only way this can be done is by ensuring that locally-led protection and restoration of nature is at the heart of discussions.

?Read more: fauna-flora.org/cop28/

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