Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust expert reflects on the positive outcome from the United Nations COP 28 climate meeting

Much of the news about the recent COP 28 was pretty negative without much of a sense of hope, writes Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

As the event progressed, I feared that no consensus would be reached. But now the dust has had time to settle and the ink has dried on the final agreement, its pleasing to reflect on the historic inclusion of the need to phase out fossil fuels if we are to limit the impacts of climate change.

COP stands for 'Conference of the Parties', which relate to United Nations (UN) conventions — conventions being the written legal agreements between countries and the UN.

COP 28 is shorthand for the 28th Meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which ended this week in Dubai. Given the controversy about the meeting’s hosts and leadership — last-minute brinksmanship and growing apathy about the COP process — it is a relief that such an agreement was reached.

Despite scepticism about their effectiveness and the speed of change they deliver; COPs are the ultimate decision-making meetings.

At COP 28 world leaders came together to take stock of global action on climate change and seek to agree how to go further and faster.

While the pace of progress may seem slow, COPs have delivered some vitally important outcomes that have driven the progress on decarbonising the global economy.

Back in 1992, the COP — known as the Rio Earth Summit — brought together 179 countries to create the first global agreement to avoid dangerous human intervention in the climate system.

In 2008, the UK Climate Change Act enshrined our commitment to curb climate change. This was followed in 2019 with our commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. In 2015 the meeting in Paris delivered the first universal agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius.

30 years on from Rio, the UN Convention on Nature in 2022 recognised how intertwined the climate and nature crises are. COP 22 also brought Nature Based Solutions to moderating and mitigating climate impacts into sharp focus.

One of the most positive outcomes this year is a commitment to the first-ever Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement to allow countries to review progress towards meeting the goals set.

Just as importantly, this process will highlight where progress is lacking. Having been weakened over the final weekend, the agreement wording was thankfully strengthened before final agreement.

The inclusion of phrases such as ‘calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts…. transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and fair manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science’ – is crucial.

The inclusion of ‘call on’ instead of ‘could take action’ and ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels’, rather than the vaguer ‘reducing production and consumption of fossil fuels’, signals a historic shift in COP outcomes.

While a huge step forward, it is frightening how long it has taken for nations to openly acknowledge the key cause and driver of climate change as part of the COP process.

Hopefully this fundamental shift, secured in the backyard of some of the world's largest gas and oil producers, will speed up the shift from promises to practical action.

The text importantly also includes references to nature, the Global Biodiversity Framework and to halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 — the first time the target date has been included in a formal COP text.

Despite the growing impacts of climate change and the understandable alarm from scientists and others that this agreement doesn’t go nearly far enough, there is still room for hope.

It is not too late for us to collectively make a difference and this latest COP at least means we can continue to move forward.

Had the meeting not reached agreement, many would have given up hope or looked to use the failure as justification for not making changes in their own lives.

We now have a platform to help limit and cope with the impacts of climate change and restore nature.

We must move forward by pushing government and businesses to make societal changes whilst making changes at home, at work and in our communities.