What’s at stake at COP28 in Dubai

livemint.com:

climate change. This year, four topics are expected to dominate the negotiations: a report on the worldwide implementation of the landmark Paris accord called the “global stocktake," the future of fossil fuels, climate finance for poorer countries and the setting up of a fund to pay for climate damage. The meeting in Dubai is the 28th conference of the parties—or COP28—to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global climate treaty signed in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.

The conferences operate on the basis of consensus, meaning that all nations must sign on to an agreement for it to be adopted. This year is the first global stocktake of the Paris accord, the landmark climate agreement signed in 2015 that calls for governments to limit warming to “well below" 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels and attempt to hold it to 1.5 degrees. The agreement requires the first stocktake in 2023, and then every five years afterward.

The stocktake is supposed to review progress since the accord was signed and make recommendations for the next round of national climate plans, which governments must submit to the U.N. next year. A technical analysis for the stocktake published in September offered a downbeat assessment: There has been some progress since 2015, but governments are far from meeting the Paris agreement’s temperature targets.

In 2010, the world was on track for between 3.7 and 4.8 degrees of warming. With plans submitted in 2015 at the signing of the Paris accord, that range fell to 3-3.2 degrees. Now, U.N.-backed scientists expect warming of 2.5 degrees.