The Global Stocktake: Progress at the COP27

Till Kuhlbrodt

National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), University of Reading

The discussions and proceedings at the UNFCCC COP27 in Egypt in November 2022 have re-confirmed what is well known already: the world is presently far off course in its efforts to drastically curb emissions and adapt to increasing impacts. Global emissions need to be halved by 2030 for the world to stand a chance of achieving the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal. Global financial flows need to be realigned and support to developing countries enhanced to support achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. The impacts of climate change are becoming more frequent and intense, with growing economic and non-economic implications and residual loss and damage.

One essential part of putting the Paris Agreement into action is the Global Stocktake (GST). Every five years, and currently for the first time, it assesses the world’s collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the Paris Agreement and its long-term goals. It is a comprehensive process that assesses all aspects of greenhouse gas-driven global change, from the emissions and their impact on the climate, to measures aiming at averting and minimizing loss and damage for communities around the world, extending to adaptation measures and finance flows, and defining mitigation pathways to reach a net-zero carbon budget of all human activities.

The Technical Dialogues (TD) are the focus events of the GST that bring all participants and developments together. After the first TD in Bonn earlier this year, COP27 hosted the second TD of the current first GST (TD1.2). Most of the exchanges happened at Roundtables and in World Café-style sessions. The Roundtables covered the breadth of the GST topics:

(1) Mitigation, including response measures;

(2) Adaptation, including loss and damage; and

(3) Means of implementation and support: Finance, technology and capacity building.

While the first TD proved to be useful for building an information base and identifying well-known gaps, TD1.2 aimed at moving from the “what” to the “how”, or in other words, from technical discussions to the political level. How can we move to wide-spread and accelerated implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures? How can we explore intersections across topics to frame integrated and holistic findings? The third TD (TD1.3) in June 2023 will then translate the findings into implementable outcomes that do make a difference to people’s lives.

“Loss and damage” was one of the much-debated topics at COP27, culminating in the breakthrough agreement to provide loss and damage funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters. At the TD1.2, discussions relating to loss and damage focussed on two main questions:

  • What tangible opportunities exist to improve the capacities of vulnerable communities and countries to access technical, finance, and other necessary support and implement concrete actions to enhance comprehensive risk management to reduce and respond to loss and damage?
  • How can planning processes and support providers better integrate the capacities, finance, and actions needed to reduce vulnerability, increase resilience, and strengthen response and recovery from climate extremes and the impacts of slow-onset events, and thereby enhance understanding, action and support, to avert, minimize and address loss and damage?

The GST process is designed to be comprehensive and inclusive, giving a wide array of stakeholders the opportunities to take part and influence the outcome of the GST process. Experts from the Earth system modelling community are directly involved in the Technical Dialogues, thus delivering a crucial impact to the results from ESM simulations.

References:

https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake

Information note on the second meeting of the technical dialogue of the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/GST%20TD1.2%20Information%20Note_20221007.pdf

https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/TD1.2 slide deck.pdf