A Fragile Balance

This year's COP comes amidst alarming signs of climate change, with anomalous climate events being observed the world over: what else could explain 40° Celsius temperatures in the snowbound plains of Siberia and Canada? Or snowfall in the Sahara Desert? Or floods in the Arabian Desert? With global temperatures hitting record highs, and extreme weather events affecting people around the globe, no region - from snow-capped Antarctica to the deserts of Sahara - has been left unaffected

- DEVENDRA SAKSENA

The 2024 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference, usually referred to as Conference of Parties 29 (COP29), will probably be the final opportunity for the international community to accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis.

COP29 will bring together leaders of 197 countries, and the European Union, as also business and civil society worthies, who will, hopefully, over the twelve days from 11 November to 22 November, hammer out workable solutions to this most pressing issue of our time.

However, if the outcome of previous editions of COP are any guide, a surfeit of verbiage, rather than concrete action, or even a unanimous action plan is more likely. COP28 held in November-December 2023 in UAE, was attended by almost 200 countries, represented by more than 150 Presidents/Prime Ministers, as also national delegations, civil society, business, Indigenous Peoples, youth, philanthropy, and international organizations.

After noting that progress was too slow across all areas of climate action from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthening resilience to a changing climate, to getting the financial and technological support to vulnerable nations, COP28 issued a call to governments to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy in their next round of climate commitments.

Earlier COPs were also high on rhetoric but low on commitment most countries agreed to achieve climate control targets by 2050, while India proposed to do so by 2070. Consensus emerged to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, preferably to limit the increase to 1.5°C. Significantly, no timelines were prescribed, and by last year the average temperature had increased by 1.64° Celsius.