The climate emergency is a direct consequence of carbon-heavy land-use and agriculture, transport, buildings and industrial processes and polluting energy sources. Without profound changes to these sectors and a drastic cut to carbon footprints, there is little hope of protecting the planet from the devastating effects of a warmer world.
Below are climate-related news and events from the United Nations and partners.
Adaptation finance is stalling, despite pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow two years ago to double adaptation finance support to around $40 billion per year by 2025, with public adaptation finance flows to developing countries declining by 15 per cent to around $21 billion in 2021.
Published last month, the Adaptation Gap Report 2023 revealed that the adaptation finance needs of developing countries are 10-18 times as big as international public finance flows – more than 50 per cent higher than the previously estimated.
As a result of the growing adaptation finance needs and faltering flows, the current adaptation finance gap is now estimated to be US$194-366 billion per year. At the same time, adaptation planning and implementation appear to be plateauing. This failure to adapt has massive implications for losses and damages, particularly for the most vulnerable.
“In 2023, climate change yet again became more disruptive and deadly: temperature records toppled, while storms, floods, heatwaves and wildfires caused devastation,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “These intensifying impacts tell us that the world must urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase adaptation efforts to protect vulnerable populations. Neither is happening.”
Faith-based organizations and religious leaders are an important presence at COPs demonstrating that religious and spiritual communities are essential to the fight against climate change.
UNEP – through the Faith for Earth Coalition – is working with religious groups from around the world to further climate action and the Faith Pavilion has partnered with 140 faith-based organizations.
More than 200 religious participants took part in a pre-COP gathering in Abu Dhabi last month, and ended with with 28 faith leaders signing a statement in support of urgent action. The Interfaith Statement on Climate Action Towards COP28 was backed by leaders representing Anglicans, Bahá’is, Bohras, Buddhists, Catholics, Coptic Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelicals, Hindus, Jains, Jewish peoples, Mahikaris, Mandaeans, Protestants, Shia Muslims, Sikhs, and Sunni Muslims.
And with with 84 per cent of the world’s population having a faith, such declarations can be very influential and show the depth and reach of faith-based groups in driving climate action.
Today is Finance Day at COP28, with the focus on the role finance can play in promoting sustainable land use, enhancing ecosystem resilience, and generating public and private investments for climate action.
UNEP Pavilion: Tackling the True Cost of Finance Adaptation
This panel session will unveil and discuss updated financial data and analysis from the 2023 Adaptation Gap Report, reflecting actual adaptation costs aligned with developing countries' NDCs and NAPs. The session will also explore how financial institutions can expand climate-resilient finance and embed assessments of physical climate risks across the sector.
Time: 10.30-11.15am
Watch here.
UNEP Pavilion: Innovative Finance Solutions
This event will explore innovative financial solutions to address pressing global challenges related to sustainable land use and adaptation and explore how these initiatives are instrumental in promoting sustainable land use, enhancing ecosystem resilience, and driving public and private investment for climate action.
Time: 11.45-12.30pm
Watch here.
UNEP event: Accelerating NDC implementation and addressing global stocktake outcomes through TNAs
This event will discuss the linkages between Nationally determined contributions (NDCs), Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) and the Global Stocktake by explaining how TNAs were integrated into the NDCs and their implementation process to enhance access to climate technologies for developing countries.
Time: 13.15-14.45pm
UNEP Pavilion: Catalysing NDC investments: ambition to Action
This event will to discuss innovative institutional arrangements and alliances for climate decision-making and investments. It brings together government officials and experts from Colombia, Vietnam and Morocco to share experiences on transformative institutional setups, attracting investment, and forging alliances for climate investments.
Time: 14.15-15.00pm
Watch here.
UNEP Pavilion: Unleashing climate-resilient infrastructure investments
Greening public investments can accelerate SDGs and Paris Agreement goals, fostering economic dividends, job creation, and resilience against climate risks. This event will explore efficient pathways for African and developing nations, organizations, financial institutions, and the private sector to accelerate sustainable infrastructure investments, design policies, attract financing and foster public-private partnerships for a climate-resilient world.
Time: 15.30-16.15pm
Watch here.
UNEP Pavilion: The financial system & the quest for net-zero - using the best available science to enable a smooth yet determined economic transition
This session will discuss the forms in which private and public financial institutions, as well as their regulators can accelerate and augment cooperation towards net zero. It will also go in-depth on the newest scenarios developed in conjunction with the Network for Greening the Financial System.
Time: 16.45-17.30pm
Watch here.
UNEP event: Enabling the shift towards a new finance paradigm
This event will discuss the importance of price-based insurance products to shield smallholder farmers from market fluctuations. Government ministries from African countries will share their insights on the critical role of public finance in supporting agriculture and adaptation, advocating for increased risk-taking and conducive environments to generate additional capital.
Time: 18.00-19.30pm
It was a very busy first weekend at COP28 with tens of thousands descending on Dubai's Expo City. Here is a selection of photos from the past two days.
Renewables made up 83 per cent of all new energy capacity last year, and 40 per cent of all power generation globally is currently renewable, according to a new report launched at COP28 today by UN weather agency WMO and the International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA.
WMO said that the increase is “key to achieving decarbonized energy systems by 2050, with an accompanying steep and decisive decline of fossil fuel consumption” and IRENA insisted that “to stay on the 1.5 degree Celsius climate pathway, global renewable capacity must triple by 2030."
Read more about UNEP's work in the renewable energy sector here.
Transparency is critical for decarbonisation – that was the message from UNEP Executive Secretary Inger Andersen today, as she spoke at a press briefing on Methane Accountability Mechanism at COP28 earlier today.
"We must deliver low-carbon development transformations that slash greenhouse gas emissions, ideally by 28 to 42 per cent by 2030 to stay on track for 2°C and 1.5°C respectively. Deep reductions in methane emissions are an important part of this transformation," she said.
"However, transparency is going to be critical because trust is low. Sure, companies are saying the right things. Yet the coal, oil and gas production planned for 2030 is more than double the levels consistent with 1.5°C. It would require serious mental gymnastics for oil and gas companies to convince themselves they are doing all they can for the climate," Andersen added.
She also highlighted the ways UNEP is working to ensure transparency including the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, part of UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory and UNEP's Methane Alert and Response System.
UNEP Executive Inger Andersen today highlighted the role tackling plastic pollution can have on the climate crisis.
"A projected 20 per cent of carbon budget will be used by plastic production by 2040. We need a global deal to beat plastic pollution," she said at COP28.
She highlighted UNEP's role in facilitation the International Negotiating Committee (INC) talks which aim to produce a legally binding plastic pollution treaty.
In 2019, In 2019, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – 3.4 per cent of global emissions. 90 per cent of these emissions coming from their production and conversion from fossil fuels.
With climate transparency on the agenda this COP28, how are the increasingly devastating effects of the climate crisis being monitored?
One UNEP centre monitoring these events is the Global Resource Information Database – Geneva (GRID-Geneva). Set up in 1985, it is home to 22 scientists who transform often complex data from multiple sources into accessible information to support the decision-making process related to environmental issues, with a focus on early warnings for environmental disasters.
The Enhancing transparency for climate action is taking place at the UNEP Pavilion now. This event will spotlight successful national practices in establishing national transparency frameworks for mitigation and adaptation, contributing to sustainable development goals and elevating climate ambition globally.
The decision to “operationalize” the loss and damage fund on the first day of COP28 was welcomed, but what now?
Loss and damage refers to the effects of climate change that can’t be mitigated against or adapted too, such as the devastation from flooding, wildfires or sea level rises.
“The fund will mobilize funding to address both economic and non-economic loss and damages, and help support communities with relocation and mobility as well as natural and cultural losses,” says UNEP’s Loss and Damage expert, Alvin Chandra. The fund aims to allow affected communities access finance at speed and scale, he added.
“UNEP estimates that the costs of loss and damage are around US$400 billion to US$500 billion a year,” Chandra says.
So far, more than US$400 million has been promised to the fund, which will be administered by The World Bank. The fund is voluntary and has no hard deadlines or targets, but it is hoped that more countries will contribute the fund in the coming days and weeks, and that funding will start to reach the communities that need it as soon as possible.
