Recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) put forth an offer to host the 28th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Abu Dhabi in 2023. This follows the postponement of COP 26 in 2020 due to global events and rescheduled to take place in Glasgow, UK in November 2021.
Understanding the UNFCCC
The UNFCCC, signed in 1992 at the Earth Summit, also referred to as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, is a key instrument in the global response to climate change. India holds the distinguished position of being one of the few countries that have hosted the COP for all three Rio conventions: climate change (UNFCCC), biodiversity (Convention on Biological Diversity), and land (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification).
The UNFCCC officially entered into force on 21st March 1994 and has since been ratified by 197 countries. It laid the foundation for the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The UNFCCC secretariat, otherwise known as the UN Climate Change, is located in Bonn, Germany, and is responsible for supporting the global response to climate change threats.
The Ultimate Objective
The primary goal of the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent harmful effects on the environment, allowing ecosystems to adapt naturally over time and fostering sustainable development.
About the Conference of the Parties (COP)
COP is the highest decision-making authority of the UNFCCC, meeting annually unless decided otherwise. The inaugural COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March 1995. The office of the COP President rotates among the five United Nations regional groups – Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and Others.
Significant Milestones
In past years, several COP meetings have included significant outcomes. These range from emission reduction targets set in COP 1 (Berlin, Germany, 1995) and COP 3 (Kyoto Protocol, Japan, 1997), to focus on development needs and technology transfer for climate change mitigation in COP 8 (New Delhi, India, 2002), and the establishment of the Green Climate Fund, the Technology Mechanism and the Cancun Adaptation Framework during COP 16 (Cancun, Mexico, 2010).
Later, in COP17 (Durban, South Africa, 2011), governments committed to a universal agreement by 2015 for the period beyond 2020, which resulted in the Paris Agreement. COP 21 (Paris, France, 2015) set the goal to keep the global temperature well below 2.0C above pre-industrial times and to try to limit it even more to 1.5C. It also required wealthy nations to continue their USD 100bn yearly funding pledge post-2020.
Subsequent meetings, including COP22 (Marrakech, Morocco, 2016) and COP23 (Bonn, Germany, 2017), continued work on the rulebook for the Paris Agreement. Specifically, COP24 (Katowice, Poland, 2018) finalized a “rulebook” to make the 2015 Paris Agreement operational. This rulebook outlines climate financing facilities and actions to be taken as per Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
Lastly, COP25 (Madrid, Spain, 2019) drew attention to the increasing urgency of climate action. Despite this, there were no concrete plans agreed upon to address this growing emergency. The culmination of these meetings represents a concerted global effort to counteract the consequences of climate change and protect our environment for future generations.