UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations has released the world’s first comprehensive Global Stocktake, a key report outlining the status of global climate action and progress toward the goals set by the Paris Agreement. This significant publication comes as the international community prepares for the pivotal COP28 summit, which will evaluate the efforts of nearly 200 countries in tackling climate change.
According to World Economic Forum the Global Stocktake serves as a foundational analysis ahead of the COP28 climate change summit slated for 2023, where the findings will inform new country-specific climate targets. The report arrives amidst growing urgency as the planet is on a trajectory toward a 24 gigaton CO2 emissions gap by 2030, underscoring the need for accelerated action to close this chasm.
The Global Stocktake, established as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, is instrumental in assessing the world’s progress toward limiting global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The current course, however, is set to lead to a global temperature rise of around 2.5°C by the century’s end, posing a stark reminder of the gap between present actions and necessary measures for mitigation.
Spanning across four areas—climate change context, mitigation, adaptation, and finance—the report presents 17 key findings alongside pertinent recommendations. It highlights that while climate action goals have been widely adopted since the Paris Agreement, there is a critical need for “systems transformations” across governments, civil society, private sector, and local communities to prioritize climate resilience and emission reductions.
In terms of mitigation, the stocktake underscores a substantial gap, projecting a potential emissions discrepancy of 24 billion metric tons of CO2 by 2030. The report calls for urgent actions to enhance emission reduction across industries, phase out unabated fossil fuels, and advocate for economic diversification to support green industrial sectors.
The adaptation section of the stocktake urges a significant elevation in efforts, noting that adaptation planning and transparent reporting are imperative for all stakeholders involved. The UN cautions about the narrowing window for securing a sustainable future, emphasizing the effectiveness of locally-led adaptation strategies and the importance of understanding and addressing climate-related loss and damage.
The stocktake also sheds light on financial aspects, calling for a swift increase in international public finance to aid developing nations in climate action. It advocates for financial flows to align with low-emission, climate-resilient pathways and stresses the need for investment in clean technologies and socioeconomic systems to bolster climate policy implementation.
Furthermore, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 identified failure to mitigate climate change as the highest risk for the coming decade, with climate inaction potentially affecting a significant proportion of global GDP, population, or natural resources.
The Global Stocktake aims to be a critical instrument for policymakers and stakeholders to reinforce climate policies and undertake more rigorous climate action. As the world anticipates COP28, this report lays the groundwork for a potentially transformative dialogue on global climate efforts.