New Delhi, Nov 13 (KNN) The first global stocktaking of the progress made concerning climate change is expected to conclude at the UN summit in Dubai in a few weeks.

It has received polarising views from nations that are signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement, reported HT.

The global stocktake is a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they’re collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement – and where they’re not. 

The United Arab Emirates holds the presidency of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

India has underlined that equity, fair share of the global carbon budget, and obligations of developed country parties to provide finance for transition and technology transfer will be critical to address in the global stocktake (GST). 

In its submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in September, India said equity has to be designed in the GST.

“India has always maintained that Equity is an important component for preserving the collective and facilitative nature of GST, therefore a commonly agreed guidance to operationalise Equity needs to be designed in the GST, through inclusive equity indicators arrived at by Parties. Equity needs to be captured not only as an overarching but also a cross cutting issue in each and every element of the GST outcome,” India said.

Developed country parties must lead in the ambition of their climate action and support, and their efforts to achieve or exceed their commitments on mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, India said.

The synthesis report of the first GST released by UNFCCC found that global efforts on the climate crisis are falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming well under 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times and pursuing efforts to keep it under 1.5 degrees, HT reported on September 9. This year, the 1.5 degree threshold was breached temporarily in certain months.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which holds the presidency of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) of the UNFCCC, where parties denote nations, is trying for consensus on contentious issues of GST.

“We don’t think about red lines. Our job is really to get countries together and deliver an outcome that all of us can have consensus on. Our job is to be that mediator. That’s what we did on the Loss and Damage piece. We went in and helped parties come to an outcome and we will do the same for the GST. 

We know that the GST needs to lay out how we can accelerate both ambition and action to bridge the gaps we know we face. We are getting a lot of great ideas from parties but at the end of the day it’s a party-driven process. We have already framed what we believe we need to see in the GST outcome in several of our letters sent to parties and now it’s for parties to deliver an outcome for us at COP28,” said COP28 director-general Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi.

Countries have varying expectations from the final round of discussions, which have been provided to the UNFCCC as submissions from February. The key negotiating blocs, including the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), G77 and China, BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) and African Group of Negotiators (AGN), Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay (ABU) have made submissions, along with individual countries and regions like the US, the UK, Australia and the European Union.

“While the different contexts of the Global North versus the Global South issue lead to differing perspectives on climate change concerns, consensus is crucial in this decade as the window to rapidly reduce GHG emissions by 2030 is closing,” the Centre for Science and Environment, an advocacy group, said in an analysis on Friday. 

(KNN Bureau)