COP28: ambitions, realities, and future

The 28th edition of the "Conference of Parties", or more famously known as the COP summit, ended on the 13th of December, 2023 in Dubai, UAE.COP summits provide a platform for countries around the world to discuss, review and take decisions required to achieve the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).It is a space where global leaders and organisations meet and discuss the strategies being implemented or that should be implemented to achieve the targets of the goals set-up by previous COP summits, and most importantly the Paris Agreement.Adopted at COP21, the Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty accepted by 196 countries that targets to limit the increase of global average temperatures to below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels and put efforts to limit it below 1.5℃. 1 UN Secretary General recently stated that 2023 marked the beginning of "the era of global boiling" and "the end of global warming" with record shattering temperatures being observed throughout the year.Additionally, the impacts of Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine conflicts on the human lives and environment have been huge.This made COP28 one of the most critical summits for countries around the world to join hands and implement decisions required to achieve the targets made over the years at the ground-level.The main target of COP28's presidency was to achieve a global consensus for majority of the decisions, if not all.This was achieved to a certain extent which led to the formation of the "UAE Consensus".This resulted in the release of a Global Stocktake based on the target of Paris Agreement.The stocktake aims to address several topics with the major ones being: loss and damage fund, fossil fuel transition, and building and implementing resilience and mitigation strategies.