COP30 Focus: Implementation
“In what ways does this COP differ from its predecessor? It is our declaration that it shall be a COP of implementation. Implementation does not require consensus – it is an exercise rooted in cooperation and mutual support.”
André Corrêa do Lago, President of COP30
In our coverage of COP30, we will be looking in particular at the key themes of:
Implementation
Climate Finance
Adaptation
Just Transition
Climate and Cities
Progress, despite everything.
In this first article, we consider some key aspects of Implementation.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, agreed at the COP21 climate negotiations on 12 December 2015, committed the signatory parties in the following terms -
”Article 2
1. This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by:
(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;”
There are many bits of procedural machinery which have been agreed at successive COPs since 2015, and which will need to be reviewed at COP30. But the central, legally binding obligation on Paris Agreement signatories is to meet that objective to limit global warming to the ‘Paris Agreement’ levels.
We know we are not currently on track to meet that obligation, and that is the central task of ‘implementation’ that should inform all others.
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 reports that global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of states’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are now of global warming of 2.3oC – 2.5oC, while those based on current policies are of global warming of 2.8oC. This report notes that the upcoming withdrawal of the USA from the Paris Agreement will cancel another 0.1oC of improvement. So the report, understandably calls attention to the fact that we are way off where we need to be, and that far greater reductions in emissions (between 35% and 55% compared with 2019 levels) to align with the Paris Agreement’s 2oC and 1.5oC respectively.
As if to reinforce this picture, the UK Met Office forecasts that average CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii will be 2.26 parts per million higher in 2025 than in 2024, with a forecast annual average CO2 concentration at 426.6 parts per million. The US NOAA, in a post not yet deleted by the current US administration, points out that:
“…the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts were this high was roughly 3 million years ago, during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period, when global surface temperature was 4.5–7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5–4°C) warmer than during the pre-industrial era. Sea level was at least 16 feet higher than it was in 1900 and possibly as much as 82 feet higher.”
So, we have a very great deal to do, and it is absolutely right that Implementation should be a key focus of the COP in Bélem. But it is also essential that we keep in mind that real progress is being made: just not fast enough.
As UNEP points out, projections for global warming before the Paris Agreement were for increases of between 3oC and 3.5oC. The IEA report Renewables 2025 states that it expects global renewable power capacity to double between now and 2030, increasing by 4,600 gigawatts (GW):
“This is roughly the equivalent of adding China, the European Union and Japan’s power generation capacity to the global energy mix”.
The UNFCCC calculations, based on new NDCs or targets submitted or announced showed that global emissions could be falling by 10% by 2035.
As Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change puts it -
“Through UN-convened climate cooperation and national efforts, humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time., although still not nearly fast enough.
That acceleration must start now. Much more support will be needed for many, especially those who did least to cause this global crisis.
But we are not starting from nothing. Indeed we should draw encouragement and impetus from vast movement in the real economy, particularly the huge investment flows into clean energy in nearly all major economies.”