Human activity is expected to drive global temperature to 1.5C in the first few years of the 2030s. Recently, India, North America, and some areas in Central Asia have experienced extreme heat levels never previously observed by the human species.
As science and experience make it painfully clear, any increase in temperature poses catastrophic risks to humanity and nature, upon which we depend.
Without rapid, sustained and large-scale reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C could slip out of our reach.
Human activity is expected to drive global temperature to 1.5C in the first few years of the 2030s. Recently, India, North America, and some areas in Central Asia have experienced extreme heat levels never previously observed by the human species.
As science and experience make it painfully clear, any increase in temperature poses catastrophic risks to humanity and nature, upon which we depend.
Without rapid, sustained and large-scale reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C could slip out of our reach.
MULTILATERALISM
Furthermore, the COP encourages Parties to strengthen international and regional cooperation as it contributes towards planning and implementation of mitigation policies with environmental and socioeconomic benefits.
That’s why, in the UN Climate Change context, we have incorporated what we call an inclusive multilateralism approach. This means ensuring that State and non-State actors work together in our collective process. And while this may mean greater involvement by private business, it also means greater involvement by regions, cities, states, communities and civil society. And it certainly means more voices are being heard.
What is the background history and purpose of COPs? And how successful was the UN-led journey from COP1 in 1995 to COP27 in 2022?
- COP means Conference of the Parties – the yearly conference held under the patronage of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- From COP 1 to COP 10 it was held under the Framework Convention and since COP 11 also under the Kyoto Protocol.
- From COP 22 – three procedural COP agendas, to include the Parties under the Paris Agreement.
- At early stages, the COPs were crucial to adopt and operationalize the Kyoto Protocol and a few technical bodies and mechanisms on major topics: adaptation, clean development mechanism, joint implementation body.
- The conferences following COP 21 were crucial to the operationalization and implementation of the Paris Agreement.
- The adoption of the Paris Agreement was not the end of addressing climate change, but only the beginning.
- At COP 26 in Glasgow, the Paris Agreement rulebook was finalized and the climate arena transitioned toward an implementation phase, continued at COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh.
- This year we celebrate 30 years since the adoption of the Convention and 27 COPs – marking a moment to reflect on the contribution of the Convention, Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement to the current state on climate – it is a successful story given the complexity of the negotiations.
Regional Overview and Trends
- Region growing population, rapidly expanding economies and energy demands – needs to be fueled by renewable and sustainable energy sources. Coal generation is still expanding in Asia-Pacific – against the trend in other regions. The region made up 80% of the world’s coal consumption in 2018, with demand mainly concentrated in China (50%), followed by India (12%), Japan (3%), and South Korea (2.5%). However, it is the region’s future plans to increase the role of coal which causes the most concern. Of the total global planned coal fired generation capacity, 94 per cent of this planned capacity is in the Asia-Pacific. Coupled with the long lifetime of coal fired power stations, this means this infrastructure will lock high emissions into an energy system that urgently needs decarbonization.
- Action by six countries alone – China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh – could remove over 80% of planned projects before construction.
What is needed deep decarbonization of the energy system?
- To make a deep decarbonization of the energy system, we need to holistically act on the entire energy value-chains, including the needs they are satisfying. Energy producers should be targeted to reduce the carbon footprint of current energy products and services. However, this will induce only incremental improvements. For a more transformative change, alternative products and value-chains aligned with the climate goals should also be promoted for the satisfaction of the core human needs.
- The full potential of climate actions should be mobilized, prioritizing the most transformative ones, to avoid either a lock-in technology and a climate failure or stranded assets and a finance failure. For example, replacing coal with natural gas and fuel-efficient vehicles is a low-hanging fruit pathway that will not lead to a deep decarbonization of the energy system. Zero-carbon electricity and electric vehicles charged on the zero-carbon electricity grid is a better option for an alignment with the climate goals.
- However, such types of climate action are still not enough for a deep decarbonization of the energy system. Yes, shifting to less carbon intensive source of energy including large scale deployment of renewables is necessary but it does not suffice. We need to enhance the energy efficiency of production processes and use less energy for the making of our current products and services. We need also enhanced consumption efficiency to satisfy our needs with less products and services, for example carpooling and car sharing will reduce the need for EV car. In addition, car is needed for mobility and mobility is required to address the core human need of access: access to products and services, access to healthcare, access to education, access to municipal services. The development of compact and complete cities, with most of the services available within walking and cycling distance, connected among them with efficient and effective public transportation, reduces the need for a car. And finally, we need to satisfy our needs with alternative products and services generated from value-chains that are aligned with the climate goals. The leverage of the fourth industrial revolution technologies, with
- telecommuting replacing commuting trips
- Distance learning replacing trips to educational institutions
- Online banking replacing trips to financial institutions
- Social media replacing trips to social events
- Teleconferencing replacing trips to conference venues
- Virtual entertainment replacing trips to event venues
- E-commerce replacing trips to stores
- Electronic documents replacing trips to deliver courier and mails
will reduce the need for mobility at the first place.
- This more profound transformation, unlike the low-hanging fruit pathway which does not address the long-term need, or the bet on CCS which present a high level of uncertainty and unknown, offers the most secure path to avoid high-carbon trap and a climate failure. But it requires to continue to innovate on technologies, policies, financial instrument, business model, cooperative action and leadership and deliver integrated climate solutions. Leading climate actors should go beyond reducing their own emissions to become solution provider, enabling others to reduce their emissions.
Why deep decarbonization is necessary?
- The low-hanging-fruit pathway can achieve the GHG emission reductions required to comply with for the next 5 to 10 years with a 1.5-degree pathway. The problem is that it will no more comply after, leading into a dead end. Only the deep-decarbonization pathway gets the economy to the zero net emissions by 2050. A short-term fix is very attractive, especially to politicians taking into account the election cycle. Yet it is ineffective. For policymakers to address climate change, they should start doing today what is required to address the long-term climate goals and avoid dead-end climate and development actions.
What is the most important action to be done to realize zero emissions by 2050?
To develop and implement an effective LT LEDS with a carbon budget and a pathway to get to net-zero. For the LT LEDS to be effective, governments need could:
- Transform the LT LEDS into a portfolio of projects and an investment roadmap
- Identify the technology, finance and policy gaps
- Broadcast the gaps that require international cooperation
- Put in place the required climate, investment, technology pull and technology push policies.
- Use the LT LEDS to inform the preparation of NDC as well as the development of sub-national and sectoral strategies
Firstly, we must go back to the core human needs and explore how innovation can support the design of alternative value-chains that satisfy these needs while supporting the SDGs. Acting at the sectoral level will not suffice as it can only lead to incremental changes.
In other words, we need a system design thinking to foster more transformative innovations and disrupt existing value-chains which cannot align with the long-term climate goals and the SDGs.
Secondly, it is crucial that governments, businesses or technology providers go beyond focusing on addressing their own problem and become solution providers. The SDGs and the goals of the Paris Agreement will be successfully implemented only if we have radical collaboration across nations and within countries, with multilevel climate and sustainability actions.
This requires a shift in mindset towards solution thinking. We are not yet there. Much more effort is required to design and implement a collaboration framework commensurate to the global threats we are facing.
Finally, the world is smart enough to solve problems but not wise enough to avoid them. To address the climate and sustainability challenge, we need both competences, which requires system thinking.