COP28’s mixed progress on action linking climate and nature
The UN climate change conference produced weak text and ambitious alliances
Fossil fuels are dominating media coverage of the outcome of the COP28 climate change conference. But even if the conference had ended with agreement on a fossil fuel phase out, that alone would not be enough to avert the crisis. Action to protect and restore nature is also needed. Many hoped COP28 would link climate change and nature like never before.
“Putting it bluntly, we will not succeed in meeting the goals of either the Paris Agreement or the Global Biodiversity Framework unless we start truly responding to climate change and biodiversity loss as parts of one planetary emergency,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the former Environment Minister of Peru who presided over COP20 and is now the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Action Agenda Champion for Nature and People.
So, what happened? Beyond the intergovernmental negotiations, there was a steady flow of promising announcements. In a significant move, more than 150 countries signed a pledge to transform their food systems as part of their efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.
For the first time, these countries committed to include such actions in their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement and their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Some countries went further, committing to action in ten areas, and annual reports on progress.
In another alliance, 18 countries including Brazil, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States committed to do more to address climate change and biodiversity loss in a joined-up way. They also pledged to ensure indigenous peoples and local communities — which tend to be more effective managers of natural resources than governments —can participate fully and directly access finance.
These are just two of the many alliances announced or updated at COP28 (see Nature Beat #7 and #8 for more). But while the pledges are promising, they are non-binding. It is implementation that matters. History should temper hope — Nature4Climate has shown that there was good progress in only 55 percent of similar joint initiatives between 2019 and 2022. The remainder made only limited progress, or none at all.
A case in point is the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forestry and Land Use. More than 140 countries signed it at COP26 in 2021, pledging to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. But by COP27 the following year, only 26 countries and the European Union joined the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership set up to boost progress towards that goal — and this year’s Forest Declaration Assessment report shows we are not on track.
Despite their limitations, the voluntary coalitions are notable. They provide a way for countries to increase ambition and show what is possible beyond the flawed COP process. The main outcome of that process at COP28 was a decision in relation to the Global Stocktake, a process under the Paris Agreement that has shown that governments are failing in their efforts to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The decision text recognizes “the urgent need to address the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss in a comprehensive and synergetic manner.” But stronger wording from an earlier draft about aligning national climate and biodiversity plans was absent.
Where is nature in the official decision?
Nature-based solutions — such as reforestation, agroecology and wetland restoration — could mitigate around a third of greenhouse gas emissions while providing many other benefits. But the Global Stocktake decision text did not include them in the list of things it has “called on” Parties to do to mitigate emissions. In fact, the text on mitigation does not mention the term ‘nature-based solutions’ at all.
It only “emphasizes” the importance of protecting, conserving biodiversity, and restoring nature and ecosystems. This grammatically convoluted paragraph of the text also refers to “enhanced efforts” towards the goal of ending deforestation by 2030, and to conservation in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. But none of this requires Parties to the Paris Agreement to act. The decision only “invites” Parties to preserve and restore oceans and coastal ecosystems, and scale up ocean-based mitigation action.
Reacting to the text, Monica Medina, President of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said: “The climate negotiations are still failing to mainstream ecological integrity at the core of its decisions. Direct financing mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples and local communities […] and a human-rights-based approach to climate solutions were also absent.”
There was also no mention of food systems at all in the text on mitigation, despite them accounting for around 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This was a missed opportunity to build on the commitments more than 150 countries made earlier in COP28.
Emile Frison, a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), said: “The glaring omission of food system transformation and agriculture emissions in the final text is a stark betrayal of urgency. Ignoring the one-third of greenhouse gas emissions from food systems is a dangerous oversight. We cannot afford another lost year for food and climate action — the 1.5C global heating limit hangs in the balance.”
Nature got better coverage in the text covering adaptation to the impacts of climate change, which noted that ecosystem-based approaches can reduce a range of climate change risks and provide multiple co-benefits. The decision text “encourages” implementation of solutions such as land-use management, sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems, nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches, and protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems.
New adaptation targets for Parties to the Paris Agreement to achieve by 2030 include “reducing climate impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity and accelerating the use of ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions”.
Where the story goes next
Despite much hope, the official COP28 negotiations missed opportunities to align action on climate change and nature loss.
“This should have been the moment where countries committed to tackle the climate and nature emergencies in parallel,” said Fernanda Carvalho, Global Climate and Energy Policy Lead for WWF. “Action to restore nature and transform food systems is vital to reduce emissions and build greater resilience to rising temperatures.”
For sure, it is a big deal that a climate change COP has mentioned fossil fuels for the first time. But the COP process is hamstrung by the need to achieve consensus among all Parties. It will always deliver outcomes riddled with loopholes and ambiguity.
More than 120 countries had supported a phase-out of fossil fuels. In the end, the COP decided on a “transition away” from fossil fuels only in “energy systems”. The meaning of that last phrase is ambiguous, and there are fears it refers only to heating systems, which account for just a small fraction of fossil fuel use.
“Whilst we didn’t fully turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this is clearly the beginning of the end,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell to journalists on the last day of COP28. Two days later, the COP President Sultan Al Jaber told Guardian journalist Fiona Harvey that the state oil and gas company he leads would be investing US$150 billion in fossil fuel production over the next seven years.
That is a long time for a planet undergoing such rapid changes to its climate and ecology. There are important milestones in that period. The Paris Agreement’s next Global Stocktake is due to conclude in 2028. Countries must update their national biodiversity plans before the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP16, in Colombia next October. They must update their national climate change plans by 2025 when COP30 takes place in Brazil.
With these timelines clear, and plenty of ambitious action promised through alliances outside of the UN processes, journalists covering climate and nature will have much to keep them busy as the next stage of the story unfolds. The same old questions need answering: where is the money, where is the action, and what are the results?
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