The 13-day United Nations Climate Change
Conference (COP28) in Dubai ends today with hopes
high from observers round the world the thorniest issue on the use of oil and gas had been addressed.
The participation of more than 160 countries
represented in the summit shows how important the
conference has been, with strong suggestion no country is immune and that everyone in fact is now on the
frontlines.
Like some observers, we feel most governments are still taking small steps, described by UN
Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiel as
“baby steps, when bold strides are urgently needed.”
Billions of people have been harmed and the
climate crisis has cost trillions in dollars.
In Dubai, we hope the governments have
come to an agreement on what bolder actions need to
be taken and how to deliver them, and the Summit was
not just a photo-op.
We will see in the next few months if the
heads of state and of government were able to deliver
in Dubai.
There is hope that as the leaders leave Dubai
after the opening Summit, their message to their negotiators had been equally clear, to use the words of
Stiel, “don’t come home without a deal that will make
a real difference.”
We are persuaded that as the COP28
geared up, that as the climate crisis entered a new
phase and demonstrated its full force on humanity
and the environment, the problem was clear on the
radar screens of leaders and negotiators.
The Global Stocktake completed by UN Climate Change this year showed every nation where
progress has stalled and highlighted the tools to get
climate action moving much faster.
Experts and climatologists have chorused
governments must pick up these tools and put them
to work.
At COP28, we hope the governments delivered on two time frames: a surge in climate action
now, and a springboard for next two crucial years,
and beyond.
We raise our hope too the governments
have agreed to triple renewable energy this decade,
and double energy efficiency.
Developing nations – who did least to cause
the crisis — have been starved of climate justice and
resilience for too long.
