UAE sets up Cop 'troika' to keep climate momentum

UN climate summit Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has set up a group — dubbed the troika — linking the UAE presidency with the Cop 29 Azerbaijan and Cop 30 Brazil presidencies in a bid to maintain political momentum into 2025.

"We must keep the political momentum and Cop continuity going," al-Jaber said at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

The UAE hosted the Cop 28 climate summit in Dubai, which marked the conclusion of the first global stocktake of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), measuring progress made towards the Paris Agreement. The Paris accord seeks to limit global warming to "well below" 2°C above pre-industrial averages and preferably to 1.5°C.

Cop 28 ended with nearly 200 countries agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels. It was the first time language around curbing all fossil fuels appeared in a Cop outcome. Fossil fuel combustion is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for climate change.

The world is still not on track to keep temperatures from rising by 1.5°C, with a UN Environment Programme (Unep) report released in November last year showing that global temperatures are set to rise between 2.5-2.9°C above pre-industrial levels, unless countries "step up action".

The global mean temperature over the past 12 months — February 2023 to January this year — was 1.52°C above the pre-industrial average, data from EU earth-monitoring programme Copernicus show.

Cop 29 in Azerbaijan will focus on finance and investments to help developing countries transition with their mitigation and adaptation needs. President-designate Mukhtar Babayev is seeking quantifiable targets from developed countries for the new climate finance goal set to replace the $100bn/yr by 2020 commitment. Cop 30 in 2025 will also be a key summit, with parties requested to submit more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) — emissions reductions plans.

By Bachar Halabi