Driving Ambition, Action, and Equity at COP28 (Part 1)

World leaders in Dubai sent a clear signal: the end of the fossil fuel era has begun, and the world is rapidly transitioning to a clean energy economy. This helps put the world on a firmer pathway in this decisive decade to hold temperature increase to 1.5°C and help the most vulnerable cope with the climate crisis.

This blog is part 1 covering the negotiated agreement. Part 2 will highlight the political commitments, new announcements, and other key actions that were mobilized at COP28.

We came into COP28 with the expectation that leaders would deliver ambition, action, and equity in the global response to climate change, and to follow through on implementation. We leave COP28 with a clear-eyed view:

Implementation of current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) could result in global temperatures reaching around 2.5°C by the end of this century. However, if the world fully delivers all the commitments for net zero from countries, companies, investors, and key sectors, we could be on a trajectory to hold temperatures to around 2°C – short of the 1.5°C goal, but only if every pledge is delivered. 

This year’s “Global Stocktake” was set out in Paris Agreement as a process to create a political moment for a course correction on global action. We knew the world might be off-track, and the Stocktake was a clear way to mobilize addtional action before the end of 2030. The final decision at COP28 set a series of important benchmarks that will steer global action in this decisive decade for climate action.

Setting clear benchmarks for 2030 and 2035 targets

This is the first time that countries have established a benchmark to cut emissions 43 percent by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035 below 2019 levels (para 27). This is the benchmark the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is the minimum needed to put the world on track for a 1.5°C pathway with minimal overshoot. It sets a science-based benchmark for all countries to align their next 2035 climate targets (Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs). 

Importantly, the agreement guides countries (para 39) to set 2035 NDCs that are: “ambitious, economy-wide emissions reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gas emissions …” that are “aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5C.” This will ensure that all the major emitting countries include their complete emissions in their 2035 target due in early 2025, and it sends a clear signal they need to be aligned with the 1.5°C objective.  

Agreeing to phase out fossil fuels and ramp-up clean energy

For the first time, countries agreed to deliver against a set of specific benchmarks for the energy transition. They committed to:

• Phasing fossil fuels out of the energy system (para 28d) by: “Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems…accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.” The zero in this sense means phase out. While it should be stronger to include all fossil fuel use – not just in the energy system – the signal is clear that the end of the fossil fuel era has arrived, and we need to urgently transition away through decisive action now.
• Rapidly expanding renewable energy and energy efficiency. Countries agreed to (para 28a): “tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.” This sends a strong signal that the world is mobilizing for the clean electricity levels necessary to put us on track by 2030 for a 1.5°C trajectory. And since the operative language is now “calls on Parties to…,” all 194 member countries of the Paris Agreement (not just the 130 countries that endorsed the global renewables and energy efficiency pledge) will be expected to deliver on these goals at home.
• Keeping a spotlight on coal. While the coal language (para. 28b) is a reiteration of language in the agreement at COP26 in Glasgow, it continues to put countries on notice that those who are expanding coal power plants are misaligned with the needs of the most vulnerable countries (as they pushed hard for the inclusion of stronger coal language) and the world’s climate objectives. 
• Constraining “transitional fuels” (para 29): It sends a mixed message about role of fossil gas, but highly constrains its use for “facilitating the energy transition.” One cannot transition forever. And since it sits within the overall commitment to zero out fossil fuels by 2050 in the energy system and the sharp emissions declines in 2030 and 2035, any expansion of fossil gas will come up against a hard reality – that its lifespan is severely constrained and may become a stranded asset in a world transitioning away from fossil fuels.
• Considering the role of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and carbon management (para. 28e) is mixed. The message is clear that you cannot wait to act on reducing fossil fuels until carbon capture can “save us.” Fossil fuels must decline now. The text points out this technology is primarily applicable for specific sectors such as steel and cement (so-called “hard-to-abate”). 
• Committing to greater action in the transportation sector (para 28g): This is the first time that zero emissions vehicles (EVs) and reductions in emissions from road transport are explicitly mentioned in a climate agreement. Rapid expansion of EVs will play a critical role in helping to lead to a peak and sharp decline in global oil consumption. A growing group of countries, companies, and investors are committing: 
  • by 2030, to have 100% EV sales of new buses, two and three-wheelers; 
  • by 2035, 100% EV sales of passenger vehicles; and, 
  • by 2040, 100% EV sales of freight trucks. 
• Accelerating efforts to reduce non-CO₂ gases, including methane. Countries committed to (para 28f) to: "substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030". Reducing methane emissions by 30 percent could reduce global warming about 0.2°C by 2050.

Ending deforestation and forest degradation

The agreement includes a commitment to: “enhanced efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030…” Importantly, it includes “forest degradation,” which is a huge source of emissions that most countries, particularly in the Global North, do not acknowledge. This section aligns with rigor of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and makes clear that countries and companies will need to deliver zero deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. Anyone reducing the integrity of forests will be going against the urgings of 194 countries.

The forest sections also ensure a linkage between the climate and biodiversity efforts by: “conserving biodiversity, while ensuring social and environmental safeguards, in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”. This, along with a new Joint Statement on Climate, Nature, and People signed by countries including the United States, Canada, and China, necessitates joint, synergistic efforts to address both the biodiversity and climate implications of deforestation and forest degradation. At COP28, countries “enshrined a new era of equitable, global ambition on the protection of the world’s climate-critical forests”.

Finance agreement sets the pathway to mobilize much more funding

The Global Stocktake outcome sends important new signals that developing countries will be supported in the energy transition, adaptation, and efforts to address loss and damage. Finance will be a key issue for COP29 and COP30, so this text sets forth the contours of those agreements, by:

• Reaffirming the urgency of fully delivering the $100 billion per year climate finance goal (paras 80 and 85): The agreement directs developed countries to: "fully deliver, with urgency, on the USD 100 billion per year goal through to 2025." This could be seen as urging developed countries to ensure that the shortfalls in 2020 and 2021, which stand at $27 billion cumulatively, are made up in the remaining years to 2025, something many developing countries have called for (i.e. $600 billion from 2020-25, which averages to $100 billion per year).

• Signaling the clear need to boost adaptation finance (paras 81, 86, 99 and 100): recognizes that adaptation finance needs to be significantly scaled up, beyond developed countries' existing commitment to double of adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025 (agreed at COP26). Developed countries are asked to prepare a report by COP29 on doubling their adaptation finance, where ministers will also have a high-level dialogue on scaling up adaptation finance.
• Shifting negotiations on the post-2025 climate finance goal into a higher gear (paras 93 and 94 in the Global Stocktake decision, as well as the separate decision on the new collective quantified climate finance goal): countries agreed to allocate at least three meetings for negotiators to start work towards a draft text for the new goal, rather than just holding technical dialogues, as happened in the past two years. The new finance goal next year will play a critical role in unlocking the finance necessary to deliver on ambitious targets agreed in the Global Stocktake.
• Creating a focused dialogue on implementing the Global Stocktake(paras 97 and 98): complementary to setting a new finance goal, this dialogue provides an important space for discussion on how to mobilize sufficient financing for countries to deliver on the goals set out in the Global Stocktake. The dialogue will run until 2028, the year of the next Stocktake.   

The COP28 decision also increases pressure to reform the international financial system to better mobilize climate action by:

• Connecting debt reforms and climate action (para 69): The agreement, importantly, recognizes the connection between fiscal space and countries’ ability to invest in climate action. This is a reference to the need to address sovereign debt crises, boost government revenues, and ensure future climate funding is offered on financially sustainable terms.
• Signaling the need for reforms of the multilateral financial architecture (para 95): The decision builds on last year’s COP27 decisions by recognizing progress on reforming the World Bank for climate action. It calls on the shareholders in all multilateral development banks (MDBs) to ensure that they provide more climate finance, in particular grants and concessional finance. This is an important signal that can be used to push the MDBs to deliver more and better climate finance.
• Indicating a new focus on broader financial system reforms (para 96): COP27’s decision talked about the need for "a transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes, engaging governments, central banks, commercial banks, institutional investors and other financial actors." This year’s decision gets more specific, emphasizing the need for these actors to improve assessment and management of climate-related financial risks, ensuring or enhancing access to climate finance in all regions and sectors, and accelerating the establishment of new and innovative sources of finance, including taxation, and enabling the scaling down of harmful incentives. The reference to taxation specifically as an innovative source of finance is particularly noteworthy - the first time in a UN climate decision - and provides an important hook for further work, inside and outside of the UNFCCC, on how to raise much more finance to meet the scale of climate finance needed. 

The work ahead

This agreement is not perfect (as the small-island nations lamented). There are ambiguous things or missing pieces and some fall far short of what is needed. There are loopholes that need closing, global and national actions that need to be driven forward in an equitable manner, and more finance we need to get flowing in the right direction – especially for adaptation. 

But the COP28 agreement, and the actions announced alongside it, give us a real shot at keeping 1.5°C alive.  There is hope for a world that is beginning to acknowledge the need to break our addition to the dirty fuels that harm our planet and its people, especially the most vulnerable. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and future generations to roll up our sleeves and turn that promise into real progress.