Global Stocktake Assessing Progress In National Targets
September 1st, 2023
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Global Stocktake:? What Is It And Why Is It So Important To Secure An Ambitious Outcome At Cop28?
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The Global Stocktake (GST) is a critical component of the Paris Agreement, a landmark international treaty adopted in 2015 at COP21 (the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The purpose of the Global Stocktake is to assess the collective progress of countries in addressing climate change and achieving the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. It is a comprehensive review of global efforts to combat climate change and helps to inform future climate action.
The key elements and importance of the Global Stocktake can be summarized as follows:
COP28 will see governments and other stakeholders debating the implications and deciding upon the outputs and outcomes of the first ‘Global Stocktake’ (GST).?The GST was included in the Paris Agreement, finalized at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in 2015, and was intended as an assessment of the implementation of that Agreement and the progress made in reaching the goal of keeping to the 1.5 degree ambition set at the Conference.? According to Article 14, the stocktake would be finalized in 2023, becoming a five yearly exercise thereafter. It would inform governments of how they should update their nationally determined actions to combat climate change (which are due to be revised in 2025).? [1]?The GST would provide a comprehensive assessment of progress in mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation and support, with the latter including technology and finance issues.
Preparations for the GST began earnestly in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow with an extensive data collection and preparation exercise running until June of this year.[2]??
Overlapping with this process from the middle of last year was the so-called Technical Dialogue, essentially a review of the data at a series of meetings of officials and stakeholders.? This concluded in Bonn in June, triggering a shift to the more ‘political’ ‘Consideration of Outputs’ phase, allowing for discussions on the final shape of the GST and the implications for future action.[3]??
These discussions are expected to be concluded at COP28.
Expectations for the GST are high. By charting progress across all aspects of the climate challenge – including finance and technology – it will highlight how far the world is from meeting its climate goals.? However, while the GST is, as the name implies, setting out what has been done on tackling climate change and highlighting the gap between what has been done and what needs to be done, many argue that it must go further and serve as the catalyst for ratcheting up the ambition of policies and support.? As Simon Stiell, the UN’s Climate Change Executive Secretary has argued, it has to lay out solutions to the climate crisis on a region-by-region and sector-by-sector basis. For him, the GST is an exercise in “ambition, accountability and acceleration”.[4]?
Commentators have highlighted that efforts to address climate change suffer from both an ambition gap and an implementation gap.? [5]?The ambition gap pertains to the disparity between what countries have committed to in their existing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Many consider that when combined, the effects of current NDCs would only be sufficient to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2.5 degrees.? According to the WRI’s Jamal Srouji, the implementation gap compounds this: many countries are failing to put into place policies which would meet their declared NDCs and as a result the likely increase in global temperatures would be closer to 2.8 degrees.[6]?
Escaping such trajectories will require a massive commitment.? The most recent synthesis report published by the IPCC highlighted the increasing challenge of keeping temperature increases to 1.5 over the century, arguing that emissions needed to be halved by 2030 if this goal was to be met.? [7]?
The GST process has been widely praised for its inclusivity, involving stakeholders as well as governments.? The contribution of NGOs, in particular, has been seen as critical to ensuring that the outcomes of GST are ambitious enough to get the world back on track to 1.5. However, the process has not been without its tensions as many of the disagreements which have characterized climate negotiations have reappeared in the Technical Dialogue and will do so again in the GST discussions leading up to and during COP28.
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Indeed, the interaction between the GST and the broader climate negotiations may present its own challenges for participants. The COP28 agenda is expected to engage with established or emerging initiatives such as the Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme, the Global Goal on Adaptation, the Loss and Damage Workplan, and the development of the New Collective Quantified Goal for climate finance. The challenge for those negotiating the GST is to support, reinforce, and enhance those efforts rather than create diversion or duplication of efforts.
This is the challenge facing the President Designate of COP28.? In a letter to Parties in July, he committed his Presidency to securing an ambitious outcome on the GST and aims to complement it with an ‘Action Agenda’ to drive “policy, finance and technology to ensure implementation” and to accelerate emission reductions by 2030.? [PRB8]?Over the summer, his team has engaged in consultations with governments and other stakeholders on the desired outcomes of the GST and working through the key milestones leading up to COP28 (the UN climate ambition summit during the High-Level week of the UN General Assembly in September as well as the GST workshop and Pre-COP” sessions in Dubai in October).[9]?
Steering the GST to a successful outcome is seen as particularly important in setting a precedent for future exercises. But for many, this first GST may be the most important one as its timing is critical. How it frames the short- and medium-term ambitions for climate action, regarding the revised NDCs and future steps on adaptation, loss and damage and finance, will be decisive given that the window of opportunity for limiting global temperatures is narrowing. Without a concrete and ambitious GST at COP28, the trajectory for getting the world back on track to 1.5 will be much harder to achieve.
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