Governments urged to make progress on priority areas at COP-27

National Governments are urged to make progress in four priority areas of mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and finance,at COP-27, next week.

Executive Secretary of United Nations (UN) Climate Change, Simon Stiell says, it's important for governments to attend to COP27 to show how they will put the Paris Agreement to work in their home countries through legislation, policies and programs,as well as how they will cooperate and provide support for implementation. 'Nations should make progress at COP27 in four priority areas: mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and finance,' said Stiell.

A new report from UN Climate Change shows

countries are bending the curve of global greenhouse gas emissions downward but underlines that these efforts remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Local Climate Change research fellow at

PlanAdapt, Chandapiwa Molefe agrees that, the right representation of countries could allow nations to negotiate and mitigate well at COP-27. She urges Botswana to also go down the same route.

According to the report, the combined climate pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the

century.

The recent report also shows current commitments will increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels.This is an improvement over last year’s assessment, which found countries were on a path

to increase emissions by 13.7% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels.

Last year’s analysis showed projected emissions would continue to increase beyond 2030. This year's analysis shows that while emissions are no longer increasing after 2030, they are still not demonstrating

the rapid downward trend science says is necessary this decade.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2018 report indicated that CO2 emissions needed to be cut 45% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. This is critical to meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall. Stiell further said that IPCC report is a timely reminder for all the nations.

'The downward trend in emissions expected by 2030 shows that nations have made some progress this year,” said Stiell. But the science is

clear and so are our climate goals under the Paris Agreement. We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world.

To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years, ” he said. The report also indicates that, raising ambition and urgent implementation is indispensable for addressing the climate crisis. This includes cutting and removing emissions faster and at wider scope of economic sectors.

The latest science from the IPCC released earlier this year uses 2019 as a baseline, indicating that greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030. This is critical to meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

(This article has been published with support from MESHA/IDRC grant for coverage of COP-27 by African science journalists)