The Global Stocktake is a United Nations Framework Convention initiative in which each of the Parties to the Paris agreement submits an assessment of their current progress in addressing climate change. Parties are required to submit reports on progress toward meeting emission reduction targets and other climate change-related goals so that global progress toward climate change mitigation and adaptation can be assessed ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Conference of the Parties (COP28), which will be held in Dubai, UAE, November 30-December 12, 2023. The results of each country’s assessment are compiled into the Global Stocktake report, which outlines global progress toward meeting the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement requires that stocktakes happen every five years; parties submitted their reports in mid-September and the report was released online in October. The Stocktake is divided into sections for mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and response measures. Each of these sections will be covered in a different post. This post will cover mitigation.
Climate change mitigation is the practice of limiting future climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and others). The Stocktake quantifies mitigation in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets which each country sets based on the size of their economy and their current emissions landscape. Developed countries, like the United States, are expected to reduce their emissions by a larger share than developing countries because developed countries have more resources available to lower their emissions than developing countries. Developing countries also must address other issues alongside reducing GHG emissions, like lifting people out of poverty and improving the living conditions of their population. The requirement that developed countries bear a larger part of the responsibility to reduce GHG emissions also reflects the larger contribution developed countries have made to climate change when compared to developing countries. Taken together, these ideas make up the basis of the call for a “just transition,” the idea that emissions reductions and other climate mitigation measures must be carried out in a way that promotes justice and the wellbeing of people and places.
The Stocktake report indicates global progress in emission mitigation since the adoption of the Paris Agreement is inadequate and lacks the required ambition to meet the goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5° C. Current nationally determined contributions (NDC’s), or emission reduction targets set by each party, are also not adequate to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement. Based on current NDCs, the projected temperature increase by 2100 is 1.7 °C. The parties agree that 2 °C of global temperature increase is unacceptable because the consequences and impacts to our climate and earth systems would be beyond the ability of humans to adapt.
Scientists say that the kind of summer we just experienced, with extreme temperatures in many locations around the world driving wildfires, drought, and dangerous heat waves, is a preview of what we expect to see unless we can reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions. When the Stocktake Report says that exceeding 1.5° C would push the earth’s climate beyond the human ability to adapt, it means that the risk of exceeding the threshold means summers even more extreme than 2023, with large portions of the world becoming uninhabitable. A September press release from the United Nations put it starkly, “Climate Breakdown Has Begun.” Extreme heat is the most deadly of all weather hazards and kills more people than tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning, and blizzards. The human body is simply not able to cool itself off when the wet bulb temperature, a metric which combines the effects of temperature, humidity, solar angle, and cloud cover, gets too high, and that is a serious threat to your health. Many people who have reliable access to air conditioning find excessive heat unpleasant, but may not realize how dangerous it can be. Excess heat causes spikes in emergency room visits and mental health crises, and the impacts on unhoused people like heat stroke and even burns from contact with overheated sidewalks are almost certainly underreported. Violent crime has been shown to increase during heat waves. And for regions where whole nations are affected by extreme heat, a migration crisis is almost certain. Even in Texas we are more vulnerable than we think, as the ongoing conversation about the stability of our electrical grid, which we depend on for air conditioning, shows. If the electricity fails, and we cannot air condition our buildings, then there is no way to escape or protect yourself from extreme heat, which is deadly even in the shade. Mitigation, reducing or eliminating the burning of fossil fuels, is required to avoid these very grave consequences of climate change.
To limit global temperature change to 1.5 °C, future emissions reduction goals must be significantly more ambitious than the targets which have served as the goal since the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The Stocktake calls developed countries, like the United States, to commit to more significant reductions in emissions and to support developing countries through financial and technological means. A global phaseout of coal-fired power generation and rapid scale up of renewable energy capacity is required. Reduction in emission of other greenhouse gases is also required; methane is a greenhouse gas emitted by the oil and gas industry which has four times the heat trapping potential of carbon dioxide. Its shorter residence time in the atmosphere means that reducing methane emissions is an effective strategy for reducing warming on a near-term timescale. Research by the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate presented during an October 10 briefing finds that it is not possible to achieve the 1.5 °C goal for global temperature increase without addressing methane emissions by the oil and gas industry. During the same briefing staff from the International Energy Agency called for a 75% reduction in methane emissions by 2030 on the way to net zero methane emissions by 2050.
The current decade is critical in avoiding the most dangerous impacts of climate change. The consequences of exceeding the 1.5 °C target are severe and irreversible impacts to the earth systems which are certain to cause significant human suffering, destabilizing increases in migration, and devastating changes to ecosystems. In support of this goal, the Stocktake sets emission reduction targets which equal to “43% GHG emissions reductions by 2030, 60% by 2035, and 84% by 2050, respectively relative to 2019 levels.”
The next post will focus on the progress parties have made on adapting to the impacts of climate change that are already occurring.