Life After Paris

A focus on water-related issues of particular importance to the developing world

Working out all the details of enforcement of the Paris Agreement for its 2020 start.

Notably, first gathering of this group after the newly elected US President announced intention to withdraw the US from the Agreement

Fiji Momentum for Implementation - intended to help countries prepare their nationally determined contributions.

Continued work to prepare for Paris Agreement's 2020 implementation.  Some notable events around this time:

• WMO report - 2017 atmospheric concentration of CO2 reaches 405 ppm (first time in at least 3-5 million years although it has been significantly higher during other periods earlier in the geologic record) just weeks before this gathering
• IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C comes out 2 months before this gathering

These reports sent a bit of a shockwave and thrust climate change back into the limelight of the news just as the COP prepares to gather. 2018 was a year of ultimatums from scientists about what failure to pursue aggressive mitigation measures would set into motion for our future climate.

The Katowice Climate Package is a fairly comprehensive effort to ensure that implementation and monitoring of the Paris Agreement will be transparent and fair.

The 26th COP was to take place in late 2020 in Glasgow, UK. However, due to COVID-19, it was instead held in late 2021.  By this time, the Paris Agreement had come into force and the US had elected President Joe Biden and rejoined the Paris Agreement. Perhaps the most publicized outcome of this meeting was that countries agreed on the need to phase down coal power and phase out subsidies for fossil fuels. As you might imagine, these were hot-button issues. Some folks were particularly discouraged that coal power was only prescribed to be phased down instead of out, as that did not align with the necessary transition to contain warming to 1.5 degrees C.

The Glasgow Pact doubles funding to help developing countries adapt to impacts and enhance their resilience.

A summary of the key agreements of the meeting can be found here: COP 26: Together for our planet.

For COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, the meeting returned to an in-person format. One of the most important results was increased awareness of and funding for LDC adaptation (e.g., through an adaptation fund), as well as pledges to initiate a loss and damage fund that will provide financial and other support to populations who have incurred physical damage (e.g. homes) as a result of climate change. Another positive outcome was recognition that aspects of the climate change finance initiatives established in Paris need to be reconsidered (e.g. the outsized reliance on debt) in order to best help LDCs. As in other COPs, COP27 recognized that existing INDCs are likely not enough to achieve any of the primary Paris goals. One major sticking point was the desire by some countries to soften or eliminate language regarding the sunsetting of fossil fuels. According to WRI, "for the first time ever, the COP cover decision included a call to accelerate renewable energy deployment," but fell short of calling an end to all fossil fuel use. In a positive development, "nature-based solutions" were officially encouraged for the first time, according to WRI. 

See the UNFCCC summary and Sharm el-Sheikh implementation plan here.

This year was marked by the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement.  The agreement to come out of the meeting in Dubai was historic in that for the first time, it specifically talked about "transitioning away from fossil fuels".  This language fell short of explicitly calling for a "phaseout of fossil fuels," and there was much contention around this. The President of COP28 was Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.  But he spoke unequivocally of the dangers of climate change, the urgency with which we must act, and the role that fossil fuels have played and should play moving forward.

The UNFCCC has this summary of the outcomes of COP28. 

Dubbed "The Finance COP", the primary focus of this COP was for the global north to commit to the funding needed (called the New Collective Quantified Goal) to help the global south - both with developing low carbon economies and responding to the impacts of a changing climate, they did very little to cause. However, the NCQG that came out of COP29 in Baku ($300 billion USD per year by 2035) is about 25% of what all respectable and conservative estimates suggest it needed to be.

It wasn't until the very last day that numbers started to materialize for the NCQG and tensions were high. The absolute disparity in priorities between the developed and developing world was glaring. On one hand, the developed economies of the global north were talking about the cost of addressing climate and the developing economies of the global south are begging for a chance at survival. Carbon Brief offers a very good summary.