A roadmap to combat climate changes

COP29 also finalized a framework under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, creating a UN-managed global carbon market. This system allows countries and corporations to trade carbon credits, facilitating cost-effective emission reductions. Although the framework replaces the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), introducing more transparency and verification standards, critics warn that without stricter safeguards, these systems could be exploited to greenwash climate targets, allowing leading polluters to delay meaningful emissions reductions.

Regrettably, no progress has been made on the big issue of “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” a key takeaway of COP28. Nations failed to agree on binding commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, an issue that remains one of the most significant barriers to decarbonization, as subsidies distort energy markets and slow the adoption of cleaner alternatives.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) stands as a pivotal annual gathering where nations unite under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to address one of the most pressing global challenges of our time: climate change.

⁠This international assembly brings together countries (parties) from across the globe, fostering dialogue, negotiation, and concerted action to devise strategies, agreements, and commitments aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and collectively forging a sustainable future for our planet.

Through COP, nations collaborate, set targets, and establish frameworks for international cooperation, shaping the trajectory of global climate action. At its core, the COP series encapsulates a commitment to global cooperation, innovation, and solidarity, envisioning a sustainable future that goes beyond individual interests for the collective well-being of the planet and its people.

The landmark Kyoto Protocol was negotiated during COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.
It committed developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions of an average of 5% below their 1990 levels by the year 2012. The Protocol was based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: it acknowledged that individual countries had different capabilities in combating climate change, owing to economic development. Therefore, it placed the obligation to reduce emissions on developed countries on the basis that they were historically responsible for the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

This was the first major global effort to address climate change.
In this sense, the Kyoto Protocol implemented the objective of the UNFCCC to reduce the onset of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to "a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". The Protocol also named the seven greenhouse gases which, back at the time, the scientific community identified as deleterious for the environment: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, nitrogen trifluoride. The protocol was approved in 1997 but came into force into 2005 after being ratified by at least 55 countries that accounted for at least 55% of the total carbon dioxide emissions for 1990.

Fast forward, 196 countries met in Paris at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in December 2015 to promote further solutions to this increasingly concerning problem.
They negotiated the Paris Agreement which represents a landmark global effort to address climate change. Approved by all 196 countries, the accord aimed to limit the increase in global average temperature to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspirational target of limiting the increase to 1.5°C by 2050”. In contrast to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the distinction between developed and developing countries was blurred, so that all parties had to submit plans for emission reductions.

Therefore, the agreement emphasized the importance of international cooperation and the need for regular assessments and revisions (global stocktakes) to enhance collective efforts. Additionally, the Paris Agreement advocated for increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that did not threaten food production, as well as making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
The Paris Agreement was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) at a ceremony inside the United Nations Headquarters in New York. After the European Union ratified it, sufficient countries had ratified the agreement which entered into force on 4 November 2016.

The Paris Agreement symbolized a collective commitment to combat climate change and transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future.
However, it was only with COP 28, held in Dubai in December 2023 that 198 countries developed a roadmap to achieve the ambitious targets to become net-zero by 2050.
After the first Global Stocktake – the first five-year check-in on the Paris Agreements – COP 28 culminated with eight phases that countries should follow to meet the 1.5 °C target agreed in COP 21. It was a pivotal moment in history as the role of fossil fuels was recognized as detrimental for the environment and hydrogen was identified as one of the pieces of the puzzle to execute the energy transition and actualize the process of decarbonization.

In fact, the 198 countries pledged to transition away from fossil fuels and unabated coal power in a just, orderly, and equitable manner consequently accelerating the development of new technologies such as renewables, nuclear, carbon capture, storage, and utilization and the production of low-carbon emission hydrogen especially in the hard-to-abate sectors. Additionally, they committed to tripling the global capacity of renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 as well as reducing emissions derived from road transport using different modalities such as developing new infrastructure and rapid expansion of low emission vehicles.
Finally, they aimed at abating emissions different from CO2, with particular attention to methane, by 2030 as well as accelerating the efforts towards global net-zero energy systems, utilizing zero or low-carbon emissions fuels well before or by 2050.

The race towards new systems to power the world is ongoing and global events such as the Conferences of Parties aid in shaping a new, low-carbon and sustainable future where the well-being of the planet and its people are guaranteed for this generation and the next ones to come.