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The latest News from the Climate change Conference

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Edited by Gill Burrell, Wednesday, 24 Jan 2024, 05:22

The Latest from the Cop28 Conference. Hosted by UAE in Dubai.

Here's a quick recap!
1 A decision was made on Loss and Damage Fund adopted at COP 28 approved the Governing instrument of the Loss and Damage Fund and decided that the Fund will be serviced by new, dedicated and independent secretariat.

2, An agreement to move away from fossil fuels and to reach net zero by 2050 but it was vague as to wether it was a phased out or a gradual reduction of fossil fuels.

  • As of September 2023, the world is not on track to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement. For having a more than 50% chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 °C and more than 67% chance of limiting it to 2 °C, global emissions must peak by the year 2025.

3, Critics of previous COPs, accuse the summits of "greenwashing" - that is, letting countries and businesses promote their climate credentials without actually making the changes needed. There are still parts of the agreement wording that are vague and will need more clarity in future.

China and India have not yet committed to the agreement. They still depend heavily on fossil fuels. Lets hope eventually they will act.

However, these summits do offer the potential for global agreements and that has got to be a good thing.

For example, the 1.5C warming limit, agreed at COP21, has driven "near-universal climate action", according to the UN.

The Paris agreement has helped bring down the level of warming the world can expect - even though the world is still not acting at anywhere near the pace needed to achieve the Paris goals.

In the end whether  COP28 was an acheivement or not will only be proved by the changes the world puts into practice in the years ahead.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference#cite_note-Lin_2023_n100-6

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