What is COP28 and why is it important?
global warming.
This year has once again seen the devastating effects of climate change on the planet. The summer season in the northern hemisphere was the warmest on record globally. More than 11,000 people were killed in the Mediterranean storm Daniel in Libya in September, while a wildfire on the Hawaiian island Maui killed at least 115 people.
What is COP28?
It’s the annual gathering of nearly 200 countries, hosted by the United Nations, to discuss ways to prevent further manmade climate change and adapt to warming temperatures.
The talks have been going for 28 years, giving this year’s talks the technical name of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The original idea three decades ago was to create a multilateral process in which everyone got to have an equal say about how the world should best cut greenhouse gases. In reality, there are stubborn divides between rich and poor countries.
Developing countries argue that developed countries got rich over the last century by creating industries founded on fossil fuels and that they should be able to do the same.
The COP process made a breakthrough deal in Paris in 2015, when all countries agreed for the first time to ensure that temperature increases stay well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels, and they set a stretch goal to ensure warming doesn’t breach 1.5 degrees Celsius. Achieving that means emissions need to fall to “net zero” by the middle of the century.
While the Paris Agreement was a landmark moment, countries have struggled to deliver on it.
