Every year, leaders from across the world meet to discuss ways how to tackle the effects posed by climate change which is now a threat to millions of lives around the globe.
The key to achieving this is to come up with solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which must get to zero.
Discussions among these leaders have been around changing how we get our energy to limiting deforestation.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP (Conference of the Parties), is the summit of leaders, policymakers, scientists, and activists to discuss these issues.
These conferences are critical for setting international goals, creating frameworks, and committing to actions that tackle global warming, reduce carbon emissions, and address the ecological damage caused by climate change.
COP meetings are held under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with each session being numbered as COP27 and COP28.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi addresses a meeting during the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan./FILECOP27 (2022)
The conference was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2022. One of the key highlights of the conference was the historic creation of the Loss and Damage Fund.
The fund is to help developing countries, especially those most vulnerable to floods, droughts and other climate disasters.
The establishment of the fund marked a significant step forward in addressing the inequities of climate change.
Most of the developing countries have been bearing a disproportionate share of its negative effects despite contributing the least to global emissions.
Other key takeaways
Maintaining a clear intention to keep 1.5°C within reach
Leaders at the summit agreed that limiting warming to 1.5°C requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030.
Countries reaffirmed their commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
That means the global economy must “mitigate” climate change – in other words, we must reduce or prevent the emission of greenhouse gases to get us to where science says we need to be by 2030.
In line with that, a mitigation work programme was established in Sharm el-Sheikh, aimed at urgently scaling up mitigation ambition and implementation.
The work programme will start immediately and continue until 2026 when there will be a review to consider its extension.
Holding businesses and institutions to account
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said net-zero commitments cannot be a mere public relations exercise if we want to win the fight against climate change.
“We must have zero tolerance for greenwashing,” he said.
This new phase of implementation also means a new focus on accountability when it comes to the commitments made by sectors, businesses, and institutions.
Mobilizing more financial support for developing countries
Finance is at the heart of all that the world is doing to combat climate change.
Mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, climate technology – all of it requires sufficient funds to function properly and to yield the desired results.
On this crucial topic, COP27 created a pathway to align the broader finance flows towards low emissions and climate-resilient development.
The COP27 cover decision, known as the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, highlights that a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least USD 4-6 trillion a year.
Delivering such funding will require a swift and comprehensive transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes, engaging governments, central banks, commercial banks, institutional investors and other financial actors.
One of the key outcomes of the various decisions on climate finance is a call for developed country Parties to provide resources for the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund.
All countries welcomed the recent pledges made to the Adaptation Fund (totalling USD 211.58 million), the Least Developed Countries Fund (totalling 70.6 million), and the Special Climate Change Fund (totalling 35.0 million).
Making the pivot toward implementation
Notably, nations resolved to make the transition to low-emission and climate-resilient development ambitious, just and equitable.
They went one step further at COP27 by deciding to establish a work programme on ‘just transition,’ which is expected to build on and complement the work to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation.
COP28 (2023)
It was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) It took place from November 30 to December 12, 2023.
COP28 was the biggest of its kind bringing together some 85,000 participants, including more than 150 Heads of State and Government.
Having shown that progress was too slow across all areas of climate action, countries responded with a decision on how to accelerate action across all areas by 2030.
Key takeaways
New funding for Loss and Damage
The conference got underway with a historic agreement on the operationalization of funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage.
This includes a new dedicated fund under the UNFCCC – the first time a substantive decision was adopted on the first day of the conference.
Commitments to address loss and damage started coming in moments after the decision was made, totalling more than USD 600 million to date.
Enhancing global efforts to strengthen resilience
Parties agreed on targets for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and its framework, which identify where the world needs to get to to be resilient to the impacts of a changing climate and assess countries’ efforts.
The GGA framework reflects a global consensus on adaptation targets and covers the themes of water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication and cultural heritage.
The decision gives adaptation progress a future orientation for the first time, reflecting aspiration and ambition, as opposed to the previous practice of measurement against past efforts.
Linking Climate Action with Conservation
Governments were called on to consider ecosystems, biodiversity and carbon stores, such as forests, when developing their stronger national climate action plans (known as naturally determined contributions), which are due by early 2025.
This call was part of a wide-ranging, comprehensive decision by parties on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
COP 29 (2024)
It was held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
It took place between November 14-22 and brought together nearly 200 countries from around the world.
The meeting closed with a new finance goal to help countries to protect their people and economies against climate disasters, and share in the vast benefits of the clean energy boom.
Key takeaways
With a central focus on climate finance, the participants also reached a breakthrough agreement that will triple finance to developing countries, from the previous goal of USD 100 billion annually, to USD 300 billion annually by 2035.
It will also secure efforts of all actors to work together to scale up finance to developing countries, from public and private sources to the amount of USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
Known formally as the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), it was agreed upon after two weeks of intensive negotiations and several years of preparatory work, in a process that requires all nations to unanimously agree on every word of the agreement.
The new finance goal at COP29 builds on significant strides forward on global climate action at COP27, which agreed to a historic Loss and Damage Fund, and COP28, which delivered a global agreement to transition away from all fossil fuels in energy systems swiftly and fairly, triple renewable energy and boost climate resilience.
COP29 also reached an agreement on carbon markets – which several previous COPs had not been able to achieve.
These agreements will help countries deliver their climate plans more quickly and cheaply, and make faster progress in halving global emissions this decade, as required by science.