In a briefing ahead of the COP28 conference, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry emphasised the critical nature of the upcoming event, marking the first global stocktake of collective progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Addressing the media, Kerry stressed the importance of securing strong outcomes on three mandated issues: the global stocktake, the adaptation report, and the establishment of the loss and damage fund. He stressed the need for candid, strong, visionary, and comprehensive discussions to assess developments since the Paris Agreement.
…. what Mother Nature has been screaming at us about over the past year particularly with the losses and damages, and amazing impacts around the world, I think people all over the world have high hopes for this COP, as I do. It’s a very important COP. It’s the first COP that will take stock of our collective progress towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. It was ordered in the Paris Agreement, as you all know, and now we are following through on the Paris Agreement by holding the first global stocktake ever. And it’s a unique opportunity, in my judgment, to rally the world to significantly step up our collective efforts to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
So, we’re going to be focused on securing strong outcomes on the major mandated negotiated issues that are part of this conference. Those three mandated issues are, first of all, the global stocktake, which will be a very important document, in our judgment; secondly, the adaptation report that will be coming through; and thirdly, the standing up of the loss and damage fund itself and, in addition, providing further guidance going forward to advance the Paris Agreement’s goal on adaptation.
And I want to underscore, I think this global stocktake needs to earn the credibility of the world by being candid, strong, visionary, comprehensive; it needs to lay out for the world what’s happened since Paris. The measurement of the stocktake begins with Paris, and it goes forward from there. And at the time of Paris, we were headed towards about 3.7 to 4 degrees of warming on the planet. Now, at least – and I don’t say this because the job is done, but at least we’re down around 2.5, 2.7.
It depends who you’re talking to. But also we know from the IEA that if all the promises of Glasgow were fulfilled and all the promises of Sharm el-Sheikh were fulfilled, you could be by 2050 at either 1.8 degrees or 1.7 degrees of warming on the planet.
Kerry highlighted the progress made, noting a reduction in warming from a projected 3.7 to 4 degrees to approximately 2.5 to 2.7 degrees. However, he acknowledged challenges due to unfulfilled promises by some nations.
So, we’re also focusing on strengthening resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis through the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, the PREPARE program, which he announced when he visited the COP. And that is a multibillion-dollar initiative to assist the most vulnerable and challenged and threatened nations around the world.
We’ll also be working to highlight and generate increased support for the all-in global finance mobilization effort, and finance will take a very prominent role at this COP partly because of the changes we’ve been able to make at the World Bank and partly because of new initiatives that are going to be announced in order to accelerate the transition on a global basis.
And finally, we’re going to be refocusing effort and energy on the 1.5 degrees, which is the critical guidepost for all of us here. There’ll be efforts on mitigation; there’ll be efforts on the innovation frontier, particularly with respect to agriculture and other sectors.
It’s safe to say that there literally will be hundreds of initiatives that will be announced, many of them coming from the United States but also many coming from other parts of the world, and I think it’s going to be a very exciting presentation of a global effort that is taking place, even though it’s not happening fast enough or big enough yet.
The Special Envoy outlined key focus areas, including methane reduction, global shipping through the Green Shipping Challenge, efforts in heavy industries like steel and cement, and tackling deforestation. He also discussed initiatives to strengthen resilience, such as the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE).
Finance played a prominent role in Kerry’s briefing, with a focus on mobilising global financial efforts to accelerate the transition to a sustainable future. The 1.5-degree target remained a critical guidepost, with numerous initiatives set to be announced during the conference.
Kerry responded to pre-submitted questions, addressing the cooperation between the U.S. and the UAE in achieving ambitious outcomes. He commended the UAE’s focus on climate issues and expressed optimism about progress at COP28.
We have received many questions submitted in advance, and I would like to try to get to at least one question from each region of the world before we take any live questions. So, with that, we’ll start with a pre-submitted question from a media outlet here in the United Arab Emirates as the host country of this year’s COP28, and the question comes from our colleague Akram Abou Al Hnoud from the Emirates’ Al Bayan newspaper. And Akram asks: “Special Presidential Envoy Kerry, what is the current level and nature of cooperation and coordination between the U.S. and the UAE and other MENA countries to achieve ambitious outcomes at COP28? And how confident can we be that the conference will effectively support climate action efforts and lead to clear implementation results?” Over to you, sir.
let me begin by saying that the UAE has been focused on this issue for some period of time. When I was first appointed to the job of climate envoy, the UAE hosted a first-ever climate conference in the region, and we had 11 countries there, five or six of whom were all oil and gas producers but all of whom signed on to efforts to try to mitigate the impacts of unmitigated, unabated fossil fuel burning. And so we have high hopes that we’re going to be able to make some progress at this – at the COP with respect to it.
We’ve worked closely with the leadership as we have and do at all of these COPs. I mean, I’ve been going to COPs since we – the process was created back in 1992 with the Rio Earth Summit, and I’ve been to some that failed and some that have made great advances. I had the pleasure of leading our negotiations in Paris and also leading the negotiations in Glasgow as well as Sharm el-Sheikh, and now here in Dubai. So, I’m very familiar with these most recent years of negotiating, and I feel confident that we’re going to make progress. The question is how much progress, and what will be the outlook going forward over the course of the next 15, 20 years, or particularly the 2030 target which looms large that we have goals to achieve reductions. And we’ve worked closely with each of the COP presidencies along that journey because that’s the best way to try to help get results and to be serious about this issue.
So I do have hopes that we’re going to make more progress here. But in the end, the proof is in the pudding. I mean, you can – the crunch is here. We start tomorrow. A lot of work has been done over the course of the last months as we’ve all been preparing for this moment, and there’s no misunderstanding among the delegations that are coming here that this needs to be very serious and very productive. And unfortunately, there obviously always are a few who are falling into a camp of either denial or some slowing down, procrastination. And that’s just the nature of an international negotiation that involves 195 countries. But we intend to do our best to advance the interests of everybody on the planet to have a fair and just, more accelerated transition to the new energy economy that the world needs.
Regarding Africa’s vulnerability to climate impacts, Kerry highlighted the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, loss and damage fund initiatives, and the U.S.’s commitment to supporting African-led climate initiatives.
we are keenly aware of the degree to which Africa bears the enormous brunt of the crisis of climate on a global basis. I mean, Africa is among the hardest hit. It is the least contributor to the problem. So, I think we all sense a very special relationship there and a need to respond to what is happening. Countries like Somalia and Ethiopia, Kenya, have all faced extreme floods – Mozambique. The three I mentioned are just in the past two months – three months, and obviously displacing thousands of people and taking lives. And those floods came on – in the wake of the longest drought on record, which left millions of people without secure access to food over the last three years.
So that’s precisely why President Biden launched the Presidents’ Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience. And that will directly help half a billion people in developing countries – especially Africa – to adapt to the worst climate impacts. In addition, we’ve worked hard to deal with the standing up of the loss and damage fund. We anticipate that that’s going to be constructed in a way that will really serve the needs of the developing world of the Global South, and we think that the measures being taken and the initiatives that are growing around the world are going to be very significant in addressing the needs of Africa.
We are – we’re very – we are the largest donor in the African-led and African-conceived African Adaptation Initiative. And at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi – which I had the pleasure of attending, which was a terrific conference, by the way, and President Ruto deserves a lot of credit for the job he did in leading that – we announced new funding to advance adaptation and accelerate climate-resilient food security initiatives across Africa. And we intend to be a strong partner for African countries who are adapting to climate impacts.
We also look forward to working with the World Bank for some of the new finance structures that are going to make it much more possible to be able to develop alternative renewable clean energy choices so that countries aren’t stuck with a one-choice-only, you got to go the road of fossil fuel. We think there are many more and better options than that in today’s world, and we’re going to work very hard with the region in order to be able to have a greater impact. And I think that the technologies that are now beginning to come online are hard to afford in some of the developing countries, so we have a special responsibility to try to help on the finance front, which we’re going to do for certain. And working with the World Bank, we anticipate a much higher level of less expensive lending to take place. We’re also going to be working on nature-based solutions, and even swaps, debt for swaps, that will make it possible to move.
The Special Envoy discussed Just Energy Transition Partnerships, emphasising their role in supporting countries to decarbonize, attracting private sector finance, and creating policy environments conducive to renewable energy investments.
Collaboration with China was a key theme, with Kerry highlighting joint efforts to submit greenhouse gas reduction plans, advance the global stocktake, and deploy renewable energy.
Kerry expressed support for the operationalization of the loss and damage fund and emphasised the importance of addressing the needs of vulnerable countries.
In response to questions about fossil fuel phase-out, Kerry reiterated the U.S.’s commitment to supporting the transition away from unabated fossil fuels and achieving net-zero emissions in all energy systems by mid-century.
As the COP28 conference officially opens, Kerry urged a faster and more substantial global response, emphasizing the urgent need for collaboration to combat climate change. He committed to further discussions and updates during the conference.
