UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai

Eight years after Paris - where do we stand today?

How far away are the climate goals that the world agreed on eight years ago in Paris? At the 28th UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, everything revolves around the question: how can we save the climate and where do we stand today?
The 28th UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai is coming up. Eight years after the Paris Agreement, this year's COP will take place in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from November 30 to December 12. It is regarded as an important milestone on the way to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Government representatives from almost 200 countries will meet in Dubai to assess how far away they are from the climate protection targets that have been set.

Can we meet the 1.5 degree target?

Since the Rio Summit in 1992 and the formulation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Parties to the Convention have met every year for the past three decades to set targets and responsibilities, agree new climate action and assess existing measures. The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) led to the Paris Agreement in 2015, in which measures to limit the global temperature increase to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100 and measures to adapt to the existing impacts of climate change were agreed.

The Paris Agreement also agreed on a regular review of the climate targets: a review should take place every five years. The first one is now due. Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, described this global stocktake as an exercise that will ensure that each party holds up its end of the bargain and realizes what the next steps need to be and at what speed in order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The stocktake itself is not the decisive factor. Rather, the global reaction to it will make the difference. According to Stiell, the stocktaking would ideally result in a roadmap with solutions that lead to immediate action; actions that will get the global community where it needs to be in the next seven years.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation will be on the ground in Dubai with two delegations to observe the reactions of the global community to the mid-term review on the way to achieving the Paris Agreement. The two delegations are part of the Foundation's Global Climate Project, a cross-sector initiative that aims to strengthen the work and influence of partner organizations worldwide by building a global network. The Chairman of the Foundation, Markus Ferber MEP, will also be a member of one of the delegations. He will participate in selected events at COP28 together with representatives of various partner organizations from all regions of the Global South where the Foundation is active in the field of climate change.