Global problems in the world

1. CLIMATE DIPLOMACY AND THE PATH TO COP 28
Despite a lack of major negotiating deadlines, an important breakthrough for climate justice and climate diplomacy occurred at COP 27. Countries successfully negotiated a long-sought agreement to establish a suite of funding arrangements, including a new “loss and damage” facility to help compensate developing economies suffering from the devastating effects of climate change. The UN Secretary-General’s launch of the Early Warnings for All initiative also put vulnerable countries in focus at COP 27. The initiative aims to ensure that every person on Earth is protected by disaster forecasting, preparedness, and response in the next five years. In fact, the urgent need for early warning systems was so widely appreciated at COP 27 that, for the first time, they figured prominently in the cover decision, known as the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan. The Secretary-General also zeroed in on non-state actors and seized the moment to launch the recommendations developed by his High-level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG). The independent group was created to address the “deficit of credibility and a surplus of confusion over emissions reductions and net zero targets by establishing the standards and measure that must be adhered to ensure action and combat greenwashing.”
WHAT TO WATCH FOR IN 2023
"Nothing that happened at COP 27 will diffuse the mounting pressure on countries to demonstrate at COP 28 in Dubai that they will take immediate and decisive action to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach."
Pete Ogden, Vice President for Climate and Environment, & Ryan Hobert, Managing Director for Climate and Environment, UN Foundation
One space to watch closely will be the Global Stocktake, which is mandated under the Paris Agreement to take place every five years to evaluate implementation progress against the goals of the agreement. The first Global Stocktake began in 2022 at a technical level and will culminate at COP 28, but a great deal of uncertainty remains about what this undertaking will deliver. A Stocktake that simply tells us what we already know — that we are off track — would be seriously deficient. Countries have also set important deadlines to establish a new global goal on adaptation by COP 28, as well as to make progress and deliver on a number of existing climate finance commitments. These range from working out how to establish a “loss and damage” facility to meeting other existing finance commitments that developed economies have failed to thus far deliver, including the $100 billion in financing to developing economies that was pledged starting in 2020.

Devastating drought has affected human lives and livestock in the Horn of Africa, leaving nearly 20 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Photo: Mulugeta Ayene /UNICEF