Withering hope

CLIMATE TALKS - LITTLE PROGRESS ON LOSS & DAMAGE FUND, THOUGH IT WAS TO TAKE SHAPE BEFORE COP28

- SOMIT DASGUPTA

THE NEXT MEETING of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) is scheduled to be held from November 30 to T December 12, 2023 at Dubai. A number of issues are going to be discussed, which will include the global stocktake (GS) report, the loss and damage (L&D) fund, resource/technology transfer to developing nations, carbon markets, etc.

Going by the progress made in the past, the general feeling is very pessimistic.

Total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2022 are estimated to be around 53.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (gt CO₂eq). To contain the temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2100, there has to be a reduction of 50% of the emissions by 2030. As against this, the UNFCCC has projected that the GHG emissions would be about 53.2 gtCO₂eq in 2025, before coming down marginally to 51.6 gtCO₂eq in 2030.

Out of all the issues which are likely to be discussed during COP28, only two of them are being elaborated in this piece. The first is the GS report and the second is the L&D fund. The GS report emanates from section 14 of the Paris Agreement and the primary aim of this is to make a collective assessment of how the world community is progressing on climate change. Work on GS is divided into three overlapping phases wherein the first phase (2021 to mid2023) was for data collection, the second phase (mid-2022 to mid-2023) was for technical assessment and the third phase is meant for consideration of outputs where countries discuss findings and their implications at the political level. These discussions will be held during COP28 and the findings will also be used to step up the nationally determined contributions (NDCs).