COY18/COP28 2023 Dubai: Event Overview
COY18/COP28 Dubai 2023 is a youth-led climate event recognized by the UNFCCC, aimed at empowering young people to engage in climate action. This conference provides a platform for youth to discuss solutions, share knowledge, and contribute to global climate efforts.
COP28
Tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030 - one of the key outcomes of the historic UAE Consensus - is an “essential enabler” of all global efforts to keep 1.5°C alive and advance sustainable development
COP28
COP28 President calls on Parties to implement the UAE Consensus, the defining roadmap for climate action and socio-economic development
The UAE Consensus represents the defining roadmap for achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and, despite continuing geopolitical tension, Parties should come together again to deliver on its outcomes at COP29, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said in his address to delegates at Pre-COP in Baku today.
Mandated at COP28, held in Dubai in December last year, the UAE Consensus provides a pathway to keeping 1.5°C within reach, while building climate resilience, growing sustainable prosperity and leaving no one behind.
Climate finance will be a key priority for COP29, and the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) “must provide the means” to implement the UAE Consensus and “meet the size of the challenge,” the COP28 President said.
Funds raised should target the most vulnerable first to help them recover from climate impacts, Dr. Al Jaber said, calling on Parties to meet previous pledges.
Mitigation and adaptation are equally important, Dr. Al Jaber told delegates, calling on Parties to meet the agreed goal of doubling adaptation finance and to embed fully funded strategies in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).
The UAE Framework on Global Climate Resilience, adopted at COP28, represents a “practical plan” for all Parties to follow, he said. On mitigation, the COP28 President called on Parties to deliver on agreements made under the UAE Consensus, which represents “the road back to Paris.”
Parties’ next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) must “seize the opportunity” provided by climate action to drive sustainable economic growth.
The COP Presidencies Troika – the collaboration between the Presidencies of COP28,
COP29 and COP30 – will continue to advocate for the UAE Consensus across multilateral platforms, including the G7 and G20, he said.
In a separate event, Dr. Al Jaber highlighted the role of the Troika in promoting international cooperation and in ensuring the highest levels of ambition in the next round of NDCs.
NDCs represent “a massive opportunity” for driving socioeconomic development, the COP28 President said at the event.
Dr. Al Jaber called for the sharing of best practices to ensure and enable the transfer of technologies globally, particularly to the Global South. He also said that we must continue to invest in new energies and decarbonization technologies in order to meet the challenge.
Before COP21
At the United Nations Climate Change conference in Paris, COP 21, governments agreed that mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate action is urgently required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Action must come from governments, cities, regions, businesses and investors. Everyone has a role to play in effectively implementing the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement formally acknowledges the urgent need to scale up our global response to climate change, which supports even greater ambition from governments. The commitments from all actors are recognized in the decision text of the Paris Agreement, including those launched through the Lima–Paris Action Agenda.
The need for engagement and action by all levels of society, public and private, was recognized early in the UNFCCC process—Parties’ attention to public participation, technologies and use of markets and mechanisms are just a few examples of this recognition. However, there are few prominent milestones that marked the path of non-Party stakeholders to a place in the Paris Agreement. In 2014, building on a platform for enhanced action established in Durban at COP 18, then-UN-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened world leaders and diverse climate stakeholders in New York to motivate for concerted global climate action. A few weeks later at COP 20 in Lima, governments established the Lima-Paris Action Agenda to demonstrate the commitment of non-state actors and forge a coalition of actors towards the goal of limiting global temperature rise through short-term and long-term actions that support a new legal agreement. The Action Agenda involved both state and non-state actors (national governments, cities, regions and other sub national entities, international organizations, civil society, indigenous peoples, women, youth, academic institutions, as well as businesses) acting as individual entities or in partnerships. It aimed to accelerate actions in the pre-2020 period and afterwards. A joint undertaking of the Peruvian and French COP presidencies, the Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the UNFCCC Secretariat, the Lima-Paris Action Agenda strengthened climate action throughout 2015 and in Paris in December of that year in several ways: Mobilized robust global action towards low carbon and resilient societies; Provided enhanced support to existing initiatives, such as those launched during the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in September 2014; and Mobilized new partners and provided a platform for the visibility of their actions, commitments and results in the run up to COP21.
COP 21
At COP 21 in Paris in 2015, it was agreed that mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate action by all Parties and non-Party stakeholders was urgently required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. In decision 1/CP.21, the commitments from all actors are recognized, including those launched through the Lima–Paris Action Agenda, as well as the urgent need to scale up the global response to climate change and support greater ambition from governments. Parties also recognized the value of having climate champions to ensure a durable connection between the Convention and the many voluntary and collaborative actions. In Paris they decided that two high-level champions shall be appointed representing the current COP Presidency and the incoming COP Presidency, turning into practice an initiative that saw climate champions from Peru, France and Morocco help pave the way for success in Paris.
Post COP 21
Since adoption of the Paris Agreement, global climate action has been encouraged and facilitated under the banner of the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, which was agreed in Morocco at COP 22 and acknowledged at subsequent Conferences of the Parties. The Partnership brings together in stakeholders working in key sectors and themes to spur enhanced climate ambition and action, and then recognizes that action, to inspire sill greater effort.