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The Global Stocktake: Translated
What is the Global Stocktake and what has it told us about the progress we’re making in the face of climate change?
The Global Stocktake is the first comprehensive assessment of global progress made on climate change since the adoption of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015.
Essentially, it is a global inventory of all-things climate change: What progress has been made? What areas need more focus? Are we on track to meet our climate goals? (Spoiler alert…we are not).
In this critical decade for climate action, assessing collective progress towards climate goals helps us to identify key gaps, holds us accountable to our commitments, and allows us to work together to agree on solutions.
The Global Stocktake provides an opportunity for leaders to course correct by ramping up global ambition and avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
The Global Stocktake consists of three phases:
- Data collection phase:
Culmination of all available information across all thematic areas (including coastal zones, terrestrial and marine ecosystem services, food, water, and energy use).
- Technical phase:
Evaluation of information to produce insights and summary reports, written by a range of stakeholders. The findings were culminated in a synthesis report.
- Political phase:
Negotiations, policy changes and decisions based on synthesis report findings.
This phase will take place during COP28 and is critical to determine how countries will respond.
So, what does the Global Stocktake report tell us?
The Global Stocktake synthesis report is a 46-page technical dialogue which serves as a factual resource and provides a comprehensive overview of the outcomes from phases one and two.
Key finding 1:
While the Paris Agreement has driven climate action, we are not on track to meet its goals. Ambitions and action must be ramped up to get us there.
Key finding 2:
Climate change must be addressed within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Tougher, more transparent accounting measures are needed to accurately assess the credibility of climate contributions.
It is vital that marginalised groups (including women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples) are stakeholders to ensure that everyone can actively participate in these efforts.
Key finding 3:
The large-scale systems transformation needed will be disruptive, so they need to be equitable.
Example transformations include shifting the current ways in which we get around to low-carbon forms of transport. This will involve shifting ownership from petrol and diesel to electric cars, and the entire reconfiguration of public transport networks.
Systems transformation also applies to the food and agriculture sector. We must find a way to reduce the land-footprint of agriculture, halt and reverse deforestation, and effectively manage fish stocks. All while simultaneously increasing production to provide for the ever-growing number of human mouths to feed.
These are the systems which underpin how we live our day-to-day lives, and they need to be transformed to better align human society with a climate-positive future. Therefore, it is vital that we focus on inclusion and equity to ensure that no-one is left behind.
Those most affected by climate impacts should be involved in crafting the solutions.
Key finding 4:
Global emissions are not in line with where they need to be, and the window to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is closing rapidly.
According to the IPCC AR6 Report, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak between 2020 and 2025 to limit warming to the Paris Agreement temperature goal. Global emissions have not yet peaked.
Key finding 5:
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs – self-determined plans put in place by each nation to achieve its climate goals) must be more ambitious.
More leadership in reducing emissions is needed, particularly from developed countries.
Key finding 6:
Systems change is needed from everyone, everywhere.
No sector can escape the need for transformation.
Key finding 7:
A fair, just transition can be applied to a range of different approaches and contexts, at different stages of the journey.
Goals should be set in reasonable, manageable chunks to reduce the negative consequences of rapid systems change.
Key finding 8:
We must diversify the economy to cope with the changes that are needed.
This includes contributions to the loss and damage fund agreed at COP27 and may involve restructuring entire supply chains.
Key finding 9:
We must secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.
No-one is safe from climate change, and greater focus (and funding) is needed to reduce, adapt, and respond to these impacts.
This is particularly vital for communities who are already feeling the effects but are neither prepared nor able to recover from disasters.
Key finding 10:
Climate planning must be coherent amongst all sectors and regions, and adaptation measures need to be more streamlined, ambitious, and ubiquitous.
Key finding 11:
Lots more support for locally led adaptation methods is needed. This includes improving access to critical resources and information, to empower communities forge their own solutions.
Key finding 12:
Despite the 1.5°C benchmark, we need to understand that impacts will worsen with every fraction of a degree of global warming, particularly for vulnerable communities who are already affected.
It is vital that we do not exceed certain thresholds and ‘tipping points’ which will lead to irreversible changes. Filling knowledge gaps is crucial to identify these tipping points and effectively avoid them.
Key finding 13:
Climate finance is inadequate and needs to be urgently improved and scaled-up.
Key finding 14:
Access to climate finance in developing countries needs to be enhanced.
Key finding 15:
Finance and investment flows need to be directed towards the energy transition and away from greenhouse gases.
Ways of implementing this include:
- De-risking investments in clean-energy technologies.
- Creating pipelines of investible products for adaptation and mitigation.
- Subsidies.
Key finding 16:
Clean technology (eg. Renewable energy) is crucial to tackle climate change. A reduction in cost and push towards scalability is needed to rapidly deploy existing technologies and effectively integrate them into grid systems.
More research is also needed to understand the role of technology and innovation (such as Carbon Capture and Storage) in supporting the transition.
Key finding 17:
We need international cooperation to reduce the barriers to climate action.
This would involve empowering each nation to assess their climate risks and seek ways to improve them.
What happens next?
The Global Stocktake is a vital tool to catalyse the urgency we need for robust, decisive action at the scale that is needed.
It will enter the political phase during COP28, where discussions will take place and a new round of NDCs will be released. These decisions will determine how the world responds to this information at such a critical stage of the climate crisis.
Read: Everything you ned to know about COP28.
