COP28: Climate stocktake text in need of radical improvement: UN official

The current text for the UN Climate Change Conference's Global Stocktake of policies and actions needs radical improvement if climate goals are to remain within reach, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said Dec. 6 at the COP28 meeting in Dubai.

Finalizing the world's first global stocktake of climate actions and committing to more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are key outcomes being pursued by the UAE's COP28 Presidency.

"We have a starting text on the table... but it's a grab bag of wish lists and heavy on posturing," Stiell said at a press conference on the stocktake.

Now governments and negotiators needed to pick up "available tools and technologies" and put them to work to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5 C global warming goal, he said.

"At the end of next week, we need COP to deliver a bullet train to speed up climate action. We currently have an old caboose chugging over rickety tracks," he said.

A draft text circulated Dec. 5 contains options on the phaseout of fossil fuels, either for: an "orderly and just" phaseout; or for "accelerating efforts towards phasing out unabated fossil fuels", helping to achieve net zero by or around mid-century; or for simply not mentioning phaseout at all.

The draft also refers to the rapid phaseout of unabated coal power "this decade", calling for an "immediate cessation of the permitting of new unabated coal power generation."

However, as with fossil fuels, a second option in the draft includes no mention of a phaseout of unabated coal power.

"There are many options on the table right now which speak to the phasing out of fossil fuels," Stiell said.

"It is for Parties to unpick that, and come up with a very clear statement that signals the terminal decline of the fossil fuel era as we know it," he added.

The UN says the gap to emissions consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 C in 2030 is estimated to be 20.3 billion-23.9 billion mt CO2e, based on current NDCs.

S&P Global Commodity Insights' Inflections base case scenario sees GHG emission trends leading to global warming of around 2.4 C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

A much more ambitious Green Rules scenario, comprising a major transformation to low-carbon economies, sees achievement of full net-zero global GHG emissions around 2085.

Progress under this scenario to 2050 translates to an estimated rise in average global temperatures of 1.7 C, S&P Global analysts say.