More than 130 people gathered in-person and online to unpack what to expect from COP28, starting this week in the United Arab Emirates. COP, or the Conference of the Parties, is the annual summit for the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, which brings together nearly every country on earth for intergovernmental negotiations.
Having attended both COP 25 (Madrid) and COP26 (Glasgow), Dr. Kathryn Harrison led the discussion with an introduction of what to expect from a COP event. “No country acting alone can fix this problem, it’s going to take all hands-on deck”, Dr. Harrison reminds us. At COP, decisions are reached by consensus, highlighting the challenge for negotiators of getting over 190 countries to agree on final texts. In addition to the intergovernmental negotiations, a trade show, and conference panels in the ‘Blue Zone' which is limited to official delegates, there are civil society events that occur in the 'Green Zone' that are open to varying degrees depending on the host country. All told, COP is a massive international event attended by tens of thousands of people.
Moderator Dr. Michael Brauer highlighted a few research and summary reports like the United Nations Emissions Gap report that have been published immediately in advance of COP28 to frame how science relates to the topics of negotiation and discussion. You can find UBC experts from across disciplines and campuses working on climate related work through this media advisory as well as connect with UBC’s COP28 delegation.
Panelists provided a primer on important issues that will be visited at COP28, including the status of the Global Stocktake (Jeffrey Qi, UBC Alumni and Policy Advisor with the International Institute for Sustainable Development), the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (Dr. Milind Kandlikar, UBC SPPGA and IRES), and the production gap between the planned fossil fuel production band levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C (Dr. Philippe Le Billon, UBC SPPGA and Geography). You can listen to their opening remarks here.
Audience questions covered a range of topics, from how COP events work behind the scenes, how Canada and other countries are (or are not) taking initiative, how fossil fuels will be discussed at this year’s event, and the important topic of equity across all aspects of climate change.
“COP is exhausting, it’s intense, it’s emotional” says Dr. Harrison. Although there are challenges to be met, we are reminded that there are individuals and groups behind the scenes working towards change. “It’s important to understand that this is an annual event... [it’s] an opportunity to track incremental progress. This is not a situation where one COP is going to completely change the trajectory of the world, these build upon each other and hopefully build upon each other in a positive direction” said Dr. Brauer.
Want to learn more?
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Watch a recording of the event on our YouTube Channel
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See UBC’s Media Advisory on UBC climate experts from across disciplines and campuses.
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Sign up for our newsletters to find out about other upcoming events.
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Watch other pre-COP webinars prepared by the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations (RINGO) constituency to learn
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Follow the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s COP side events available online
Word Cloud showing the most popular terms in audience submitted questions.