Key Issues to Watch at COP28 from an Early Career Scientist’s Point of View: An One-page Summary

Date: 11/20/2023
Author: Chia Chun Angela Liang
Contact: [email protected]
Affiliation: PhD candidate at UC Irvine, USA; Science and Technology Advisor at Open Dialogues International Foundation; Western Onboarding Chair, National Science Policy Network
  
With COP28 coming in 2 weeks, more information has been released from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authority. As an early-career scientist representing the American Chemical Society and the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations (RINGO) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it is fascinating to attend COP28 compared to other COPs.
First of all, the COP28 leadership may present a conflict of interest to the UNFCCC itself. The president-designate of COP28, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, runs the country's largest oil company, i.e., the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. With its plan to expand fossil fuels, it presents a conflict of interest with the main goal of the UNFCCC as stated in Article 2 Objective, which requires parties to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic disturbances to the climate system [ref 1]. As a scientist who understands the physical impacts of fossil fuels on our climate system [ref 2], one key point to watch this year at COP28 is how the COP presidency discusses the role of fossil fuels in the future. In addition to this, there are other key topics that are worth taking a look at as scientists:

• First Global Stocktake: As defined in the Paris Agreement, countries submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to state their decarbonization goals, and every 5 years, countries will sit down at the roundtable at the COP to evaluate their NDCs [ref 3]. With the amount of greenhouse gas emissions being emitted, scientists will be able to know better what the temperature will look like at the end of this century.
• Just transition: there were discussions on social and climate justice in the past, but an integrated, just, and holistic approach to climate solutions, which is just transition, is new and formally on the agenda this year at COP. Something worth mentioning is that, according to IPCC AR6 (and also quoted by the current Chair of IPCC, Jim Skea, in multiple high-level meetings [ref 4]), just transition is the only way forward for countries effectively solving climate change issues in both mitigation and adaptation. Note that the justice, vulnerability, risk, and impacts of climate change on marginalized communities are backed up by science. 
• Loss and Damage: The topic of loss and damage has been ongoing in COPs for decades, but it was at COP27 that it was first presented on the formal agenda. Nothing solid was achieved last year. Many negotiations, which were supposed to be opened to observers, were switched to parties-only at the last moment. Scientists could offer their expertise on how much the adaptation would cost at national and local levels; however, one difficulty for scientists to overcome is that, whenever talking about money, it could be related to national security.
• Santiago Network: The network features technical support and capacity building for developing countries for the implementation of relevant approaches in the Warsaw International Mechanism to minimize the loss and damage from climate change [ref 5]. This will continue to be a hot topic at COP28. The technical support and capacity building in the network will provide scientists with lots of opportunities to offer their knowledge.
• Katowice Work Program/Climate Package: mostly known for its 100 billion goals from developed countries in finance, the complete Katowice Work Program/Climate Package consists of mitigation, adaptation, and finance [ref 6 & 7]. Since the $100 billion goal looks unreachable right now, countries will certainly continue the discussion of either continuing to fulfill the $100 billion goal or finding another way out at COP28.

As an early-career scientist, COPs might be overwhelming because there are many items and topics being discussed and negotiated at the same time. Besides, there are hundreds of side events, exhibitions, and possibly protests happening in both the Blue Zone and the Green Zone every day. There are many ways that an early-career scientist can make an impact, and hopefully this article will be helpful to those early-career researchers who are attending COP28 this year in Dubai, UAE.

Reference

1. UNFCCC Article 2 Objective “The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner”.
2. IPCC AR6 https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/ 
3. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-the-global-stocktake 
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBa59wR83lo 
5. https://unfccc.int/santiago-network/about 
6. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/katowice-climate-package#:~:text=The%20Katowice%20climate%20package%20provides,mitigation%20actions%20in%20developing%20countries.
   
7. ​https://www.wri.org/technical-perspectives/where-do-we-go-100-billion-goal-procedural-options-enhance-climate-finance