Will the diplomatic mechanism put in place during COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, be strong enough to accelerate climate action and put the world back on the path to more bearable warming? As soon as Sultan Al-Jaber's hammer fell on Wednesday, December 13, many scientists hesitated. Some prefer to see the signal sent to the whole world, others emphasize the lack of a binding vocabulary. “Climate diplomacy often consists of small steps, but this step is bigger than the others,” concludes Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, climatologist and former vice president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Because it is also a cultural battle and this conference sends the message to leaders, industrialists and the general public that it is necessary to work towards a planet without fossils. »
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers COP28: A historic agreement on a “transition away from fossil fuels” was reached in Dubai
It is not yet possible to estimate exactly what influence this COP text, which points to the responsibility of fossil fuels in an unprecedented way, will have. The Global Stocktake negotiated in Dubai, an extension of the Paris Agreement, has the same weakness: it is not binding and relies on the goodwill of states. Its success will depend on the measures implemented in the coming months. “New funding sources, new ambitious climate plans and progress on adaptation still need to be discussed beyond COP28 and before COP29,” predicted Laurence Tubiana, president of the European Climate Foundation and architect of the Paris Agreement.
In 2015, in Paris, states committed to limiting warming to “well below 2°C” and “continuing the measures taken to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.” To measure their efforts, they must submit their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), their action plan to comply with the text, every five years. Formally, they tend to play along: 94% of the 195 parties have sent their strategy to the UN. The next CDNs, which will be presented no later than 2025, must now take the new words in Dubai into account. This means that governments should adjust their fossil fuel production and consumption trajectories.
Climate finance at the heart of COP29 in Baku
If the Paris Agreement wasn't enough – the world is still on a temperature trajectory of +2.7°C – it wasn't in vain either. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report released on November 20, without the Paris Agreement, greenhouse gas emissions would have been 16% above 2019 levels, so the curves are currently trending toward an increase of about 2%. A far cry from the -43% recommended by the IPCC. On Wednesday December 13th, paleoclimatologist and former vice-president of the IPCC, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, has already estimated on France Inter that the COP28 text would only be enough to reduce emissions by 5%.
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