13 October 2023, Apia Samoa – The Global Stocktake (GST) at the 28th UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai, UAE, has been identified as an accountability exercise critical for the Pacific’s fight for a 1.5 degree world.
As the curtains fall on the Pacific SIDS Preparatory Meeting for COP28 in Samoa, PSIDS Chair and the Republic of Palau’s representative, Mr Xavier Matsutaro, said the Global Stocktake and Climate Finance emerge as two of the biggest issues for Pacific countries heading to Dubai.
“Our Pacific countries have clearly identified all their thematic priorities and consolidated positions and messages around them but I feel that for COP28, the Global Stocktake and Climate finance will be two of the biggest issues,” Mr Matsutaro said. “The GST will force the global community to look at the mirror, and they will realise that there is so much more that needs to be done. The world is behind across the board in terms of our goals and aspirations to address climate change so we need this GST to get an idea of how bad it is.”
Held at SPREP’s Vailima headquarters from 10-13 October 2023, the PSIDS pre-COP28 meeting was a chance for officials to finalise the Pacific’s positions on priority thematic areas such as Mitigation, Just Transition, Adaptation, Finance, Ocean, Loss and Damage, Global Stocktake (GST), Gender, Article 6, Transparency, Capacity Building and Technology and Agriculture.
COP28 is shaping up to be one of the biggest COPs in history with more than 80,000 people expected to attend. Dubai will mark the first Global Stocktake of the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which aims to assess the world’s collective progress towards achieving its climate goals. The President of COP28, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, has reminded world leaders that at COP21 in 2015, the world agreed to limit global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2050.
“To remain on target, science tells us that emissions must be halved by 2030. We only have another seven years to meet that goal. COP28 UAE is a prime opportunity to rethink, reboot, and refocus the climate agenda,” Dr. Al Jaber said.
The Chair of the PSIDS pre-COP28 said time is running out.
“COP28 in as far as history goes is one of the most important meetings of our time and that’s because we are running out of time with the temperature limit by 2025, which is really around the corner. In terms of emissions, we cannot have any more in terms of what we are spilling out today,” Mr Matsutaro said. “The pressure is on the COP President for obvious reasons, with his background and connections to the oil industry, to see what he can do to address this issue of mitigation. This is the first time we will have someone sitting on the other side of the fence trying to move the needle in the right direction, particularly on the mitigation front. There is a lot of pessimism and I get it from the optical standpoint, but from a practical standpoint, I can see an opportunity with an entity that can do something significant in this COP.”
For Climate finance, Mr Matsutaro said it’s the breadth of coverage for small Pacific delegations that is going to be an issue.
“We’re very grateful that some PSIDS are investing more human resources into this area. There are only two weeks of negotiations, and you divide that using the timeframe the COP President is giving us, it gives us essentially one and a half hour to conclude on every decision so we have a big challenge ahead of us.”
So how Pacific countries deal with this?
“We need to prioritise and focus our efforts on where we can get the most bang for our buck, and maybe focus more on some of thematic areas that are particularly important to us. Loss and Damage for instance is going to be a big fight and the funding component is a big part of it,” said Mr Matsutaro.
“Negotiators and officials need ensure they do not get too distracted. COP28 I’ve been told is going to be the largest in terms of number of participants, more than 80,000 which is unheard of in COP, which means there will be a lot of distractions, there will be a lot of floating parts trying to pull the attention and engagements to different directions and events. It’s important to have a filtering process to ensure you are not too distracted by different things especially if they are not of high priority for your country and our region.
“We need to have a game plan, and don’t forget we are there to negotiate and anything in the text will impact our communities. We need to stay laser focused, we need to ensure we filter out all the fluff and engage on the substantive stuff that are really important for our people.”
The 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP28) will be held in Dubai, UAE, from Thursday 30 November 2023 – Tuesday 12 December 2023.
The Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) Preparatory Meeting for the UNFCCC COP28 held at SPREP’s Vailima headquarters was funded by the Government of Australia. Facilitated by SPREP, this is also supported by the Government of New Zealand.
“This has been a very important gathering to polish our thematic priorities leading up to COP, it’s important because this meeting informs our leaders on their positions and what to push for leading up to the COP. All the thematic priorities, even though they are different, are all connected and interlinked,” said Mr Matsutaro.
“Our leaders have a very important albeit challenging role to try and advocate for our needs in such a global forum and then bringing it back to our Pacific countries and implementing it on the ground. This is why we do what we do, we are here to advocate for what is best for our people and our communities. We are speaking up for our survival and our leaders must be bold to do this with passion, dedication and commitment.”