Climate negotiators are focused on taking inventory of where nations stand on cutting carbon pollution or preparing for a warmer world.
The inventory of gaps between what nations are doing and what they are obliged to do to fulfill the 2015 Paris Agreement dominates the week-old talks hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.
Nations that signed the Paris treaty committed to hold warming this century to under 2° above pre-industrial levels, or preferably 1.5°. But we've already reached 1.4°, the World Meteorological Organization said.
"Alarmingly, the global stocktake demonstrates that progress on adaptation is stagnating," U.N. Climate Change's Simon Stiell said on Wednesday.
Stiell, executive secretary of the entity formally known as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, called for negotiators from 197 nations to ensure climate adaptation financing is "scaled up significantly."
Developing nations need the money to adapt to more fires, floods, droughts, temperature fluctuations and sea level rise, and that's on top of the world doing everything possible to cut emissions and slow the pace of warming.
"Let’s be honest: good intentions won’t halve emissions this decade or save lives right now," he said. "Only serious progress on finance can deliver frontline results."
The global stocktake underpins "the core decision here on how to close the gap to 1.5° through the phaseout of fossil fuels and the scaleup of renewable energy," said Jennifer Morgan, Germany's special climate envoy.
Delivering a 'bullet train' not an 'old caboose'
The 28th Conference of Parties, or COP28, pivots on key word choices, such as between "should" or "shall," which carries legal obligations, and between actions to "phase down" or "phase out" burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Some favor a "fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty," which has gained the endorsement of the World Health Organization, European Parliament, 11 nations and dozens of cities.
The approach calls for "a global just transition away from coal, oil and gas in a manner that is both fast and fair, so that no worker, community or country is left behind."
This is the first U.N. climate summit that has required participants to disclose at registration if they represent polluting industries.
As many as 84,000 people are attending, a more than 20-fold increase from COP1 at Berlin in 1995. That includes at least 2,456 lobbyists for coal, oil, or natural gas, a Brussels-based coalition of more than 450 organizations said.
On the first day of the summit, leaders announced the creation of a "loss and damage" climate compensation fund – a breakthrough from past talks.
Rich nations most responsible for the climate crisis have pledged more than $720 million to it so far, but that's less than 0.2% of the estimated US$400 billion a year that developing countries need.
"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," Stiell summed up.
"But the tools are all there on the table, the technologies and solutions exist. It’s time for governments and negotiators to pick them up and put them to work."
