Taking stock of climate governance for implementing a just and resilient transition to net zero

COP28 wrapped up on the 13th of December 2023, after two weeks of multilateral negotiations on climate change taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This year the focus was on the first-ever global stocktake, a process for countries to assess collective progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. The report card showed big gaps between what is needed and current implementation efforts for adaptation, mitigation, and climate finance. 

ARUA-CD and ACEIR co-organised a side event at COP 28, chaired by TSITICA researcher Dr Alina Averchenkova of the London School of Economics on the 10th of December 2023.

As part of the side event, Fredrick Ochieng Ouma, National Project Manager in the Kenyan Government for Transparency and MRV, spoke on climate governance and implementing a just and resilient transition to net zero. Mr Ouma highlighted the increasingly blurring lines between climate change and development challenges in climate governance and access to climate finance from an African perspective, which resonated in an interesting debate with his European counterpart.

Watch the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN7q266kAdw&list=PLBcZ22cUY9RLMkm-apVgzZ8JSi0Tsywd3&index=61

 

Reflections from COP28

By: Emily Ojoo-Massawa

 

Background to COP28

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was adopted in 1992, sets out the legal framework and principles for international cooperation to combat climate change by limiting average global temperature increases to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the global climate system. The Convention, which currently has a membership of 197 Country Parties, entered into force in 1994, while the first conference of the Parties (COP) met for the first time in 1995. In its first decision, the Berlin Mandate, Parties agreed that there was a need to strengthen the global response to climate change. The negotiations that followed led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol that legally bound the Annex 1 Parties to emission reduction targets.  

The Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005 and has 196 Parties. Its first commitment period took place from 2008 to 2012, followed by the second commitment period, from 2013 to 2020.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement, which builds on the Convention, was adopted. It entered into force in 2016 and currently has a membership of 193 Parties.

The Agreement sets a goal of holding the increase in global temperatures to well below 2oC above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5oC (UNFCCC,2015, Article 2). Further, Parties are required to submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and will review the aggregate progress on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation every five years, through a Global Stocktake.

For country Parties to be able to meet the objectives of stabilizing the global climate system and in particular the temperature goals as set under the Paris Agreement, appropriate financial flows, capacity building and technology are required.

Since the coming into force of the UNFCCC, the COP in Dubai was the 28th. The agendas have been changing with the different COPs, but up to now, the issues being addressed fall broadly under the UNFCCC itself, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The Agreement also sets out an Enhanced Transparency Framework (UNFCCC, Article 13) for national reporting by countries.

My role at the COP28 and other AGN meetings

As a former chair of the AG, I sit on the Ad-Hoc Advisory Council. Hence, I participate in the climate change negotiations to support the chair in guiding on thematic issues under the negotiations, facilitation of mentorship, capacity building and leadership development, contributing to the preparation of briefs for policymakers, and providing advisory services on climate change policy development and implementation.

Reflections on the event

It was a huge COP with over 65,000 participants. The COP started on a high note. Following how close the Loss and Damage Fund didn’t initially feature on the Sharm El Sheikh agenda, the agreement to establish the Fund in Dubai was most welcome news for vulnerable developing countries.

The pledges made to the fund were also welcome and that the COP Presidency was leading the way, including in the amount put on the table, was commendable. This is important because we are looking for a sustainable fund that can only be assured if its funding base is broad and innovative. The Presidency’s contribution showed the way.  We are looking for a fund that is adequately funded, agile and able to quickly channel funds where needed and therefore able to provide immediate relief and recovery to the most vulnerable groups being affected by climate-related events. We do expect developed countries to lead the way in resourcing this fund and to come up with a defined replenishment cycle. That the World Bank is the trustee does raise concerns. Concerns which we raised when they were chosen as trustees for the Adaptation Fund under the Kyoto Protocol and still hold.

Other key tasks for COP28 included the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA)-An adoption of a robust GGA framework; Mitigation Work Programme-looking into the identification of opportunities to increase mitigation ambition in line with the 1.50 °C goal of the PA; just transition-agreement on work programme; Article 6 and climate finance.

While I did participate in several formal and informal discussions on these agenda items, I focused more on the Global Stocktake discussions that overall covered all the listed items. The GST was also the presidency’s priority. The five years of GST work included a technical assessment process, technical dialogue with a meeting summary report and eventually a factual synthesis report of the GST that was published in September 2023. Clearly very elaborate work and therefore on my part, I expected from this COP an action plan with a call for course correction including deep emission cuts. Emissions are rising above what is expected under the current NDCs, this is also supported by the recently released AR6. But with action plans, there must be resources and seeing the nebulous discussions on finance, including geopolitical issues surrounding Ukraine, unrest in the Middle East etc., state of the world economy.

The COP28 outcome defines the gap towards the 1.50C target but has weak language around global actions, such as the phase-down of unabated coal power; utilizing zero and low carbon fuels well before or around mid-century, etc. There is even no strong direction for Parties to align their NDCs with the PAs temperature goal. There was, however, no call to build on the GST in the Mitigation work programme! Despite GST's recognition of the growing magnitude of adaptation needs, there is little support for developing countries to adapt.

I did also take some time to follow discussions on reporting under the Convention, Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Most of the vulnerable countries, including Africa, need support and advice on the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) including capacity building to be able to participate in the technical review of the country reports. The UNFCCC secretariat is doing a lot to build the required capacity and countries need to be continually informed of the courses and availability.

There is also my favourite topic, Africa’s special circumstances. We need to have it make its way onto the COP agenda.