Pace of climate action needs to accelerate
The 2023 edition of the annual Yearbook of Global Climate Action released on day one of the COP28 climate conference finds that businesses, investors, cities, states and regions are stepping up to take climate action in greater numbers than ever before — just not at the pace or scale needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Climate action needs to accelerate everywhere. Systems transformation, from energy and transport to our relationship with nature and our social systems, is essential to rapidly reducing emissions and building resilience,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “Greater collaboration between Parties and non-Party stakeholders is an opportunity to radically enhance action towards our collective climate goals.”
The 2023 Yearbook, the seventh of the series, provides an overview of the progress, trends and challenges of real-world climate action taken by non-Party stakeholders. For example, the Yearbook reports that the Global Climate Action Portal — a platform that tracks climate action around the globe — now has more than 32,000 registered actors, an increase of approximately six times higher than in 2015. However, gaps remain, both in terms of increasing the geographical coverage and breadth of climate action of the portal itself but also in the solutions being pursued by non-Party stakeholders.
In the Yearbook’s foreword, High-Level Champions Mahmoud Mohieldin (Egypt) and Razan Al Mubarak (United Arab Emirates) jointly called for a step-up of climate action this decade. “Effective implementation, in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, is our common goal that needs to be pursued under the guiding principle of climate justice. The global stocktake is our opportunity to forge ahead, together,” they wrote.
Other key advances outlined in the 2023 edition of the Yearbook include increased support to cities that are adapting to the impacts of climate change, more finance mobilized for marginalized groups such as Indigenous Peoples, the publication of a handbook to help non-Party stakeholders align their policies with net-zero goals, and the launch of a report that explains how to unlock climate financing in Africa.
The 2023 Yearbook also has a strong focus on the conclusion of the first global stocktake at COP28, which got underway in Dubai today. The global stocktake is a process for countries and stakeholders to see where they are collectively making progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and where they are not. Governments will take a decision on the global stocktake at COP28, which can be leveraged to accelerate ambition in their next round of climate action plans due in 2025. Non-Party stakeholders shared their insights for how governments can come together at COP28 with a strong response to the stocktake.
Seven key messages emerged from the Yearbook that could help inform the conclusion of the global stocktake:
Climate action needs to align with the goal of keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius climate-resilient world within reach.
The opportunities to accelerate climate action exist, but need to be scaled up.
Non-Party stakeholders are key partners in ramping up climate action and ambition.
Credibility of action and commitments of non-Party stakeholders need to be systematically ensured.
International cooperation across sectors and actors, guided by the principle of climate justice, is instrumental in systems-transformation.
Climate action should not be siloed.
Fair finance flows are needed now.
“There can only be one response to the stocktake: renewed ambition and accelerated climate action; action that charts a course to 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and build resilience,” said Stiell.
