The year 2023 will be “without a doubt” the hottest on record, which “it will increase the commitment in adaptation and mitigation issues by many countries” with a view to the next Conference of the Parties (COP28) to be held in dubai (United Arab Emirates), predicted in an interview with EFE the director of the Business and Climate Foundation, Elvira Carles Brescolí.
In this summit that will be held in November 2023, all the signatory countries will contribute their balance of emissions, “which is presented every three years and is a thermometer to know where we are, what is needed and what we are going to suffer” at the prospect of “increasingly hot summers”.
The consequences of climate change will drive “many advances in the solidarity agenda, especially with the most vulnerable countries” in Dubai, but also on the issue of fossil fuel subsidies where until now, only “the agreement to gradually reduce them, but not their elimination”, according to Brescoli.
In this sense, COP28 promises progress on a path in which “progress is slow, despite the climate emergency” and in 2022 they were especially weighed down by “a complicated geopolitical situation”, due to the sum of three crises: war, energy and economic.
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Carles Brescolí, who accumulates the experience of having already participated in fourteen COPs, has explained that the climate summit last November in Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) had at least three successes to highlight: the first was that “No one got up from the table although the European Union was about to do so because it felt very pressured and even attacked.”
The second was the creation of the specific fund for losses and damages because “We had been talking about this issue in the corridors for more than ten years but it was never on the discussion agendas” and “now it has materialized”yes ok “money is not yet on the table” and a transition committee is already working to formalize this agreement.
The third success is the impulse “tremendously important” to the application of article 6 of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015, referring to international carbon markets, and on which work has been carried out since then.
“We have made progress in the part of the two mechanisms that cost us so much, those that mark the effective functioning of these markets in points 6.2 and 6.4 and also in 6.8, which marks the determined commitments of each country”precise.
Other factors to see the future with optimism are those related to “nature-based solutions, to help preserve biodiversity and water” or new technologies and fuels, especially around green hydrogen.
Among the negative aspects of COP27, he has highlighted that “The basic objective, to reduce emissions, we are not achieving”although the five main world emitters, which add up to 63% of the total -China the most, with 30%, but also the US, India, Russia and Japan-, “they have tightened their belts and they are containing them”.
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The problem is that “a series of emerging countries are growing very fast and increasing a lot in emissions, although nobody talks about them”such as Iran, South Korea, Indonesia or Mongolia, which ultimately unbalances the balance.
In this sense, he has praised the work of the EU, which “It is reducing more than anyone, it is using renewables more than anyone and more than ever, and electric mobility is increasing a lot” and, although it only contributes 9% of global emissions“it has become a kind of mini-laboratory of the world” with “leadership in issues as important as the purchase and sale of emission rights”, although “this will not work until the price is not global, that we all play in the same league ”.
“Not all COPs can achieve great achievements and some, like the one in Egypt, are transitional”he recalled, but Dubai promises to be better, with a role “relevant” for Spain, which will assume the rotating European presidency in the second half of 2023.
In 2024, the climate summit will return to Europe, “probably to an eastern country” and “it is not written on any paper but my bet is Sofia (Bulgaria)”
The Business and Climate Foundation helps companies in their transition towards a low-carbon green economy and has been an accredited observer member of the UN since 2010.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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