The UN’s annual climate gathering, COP28, began last Thursday in Dubai. Read updates from the Clean Energy Council’s CEO, Kane Thornton, and Policy Director for Decarbonisation, Anna Freeman, who are there in attendance.
The UN’s annual climate gathering, the Conference of the Parties (COP) 28, highlights the critical role that the renewable energy sector will play in meeting Australia’s decarbonisation goals and international commitments.
More than 140 heads of state, senior government leaders and at least 70,000 participants are expected to attend over the course of the two-week event. Global leaders attending the World Leaders' Summit include UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, first minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. US Vice-President Kamala Harris flew in late last week and committed $3bn (£2.4bn) to the Green Climate Fund, which aims to boost renewable energy and climate resiliency around the world,
The central focus of this year’s COP (30 November–12 December), will be reporting on the global stock take of climate action, which is a comprehensive, 5-yearly assessment of progress since the 2015 Paris Agreement. The preliminary findings from the stock take is expected to show that the global community is not on track to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.
Yesterday in Dubai, Australia joined over 115 countries (including the United States, Canada, and Norway) signing up to a pledge to triple installed renewable energy capacity and double global average annual energy efficiency improvements by 2030. Minister Bowen said this reiterates an agreement reached by G20 countries in September.
Meanwhile a much smaller group of countries (not including Australia) signed onto a pledge to triple nuclear energy.
Other prominent themes at this year’s COP will once again be the ‘fast tracking of the energy transition’ including the phasing out of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels by 2050, the tripling of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030, and the delivery of past funding commitments and new funding allocations to support developing countries.
Check our COP28 page regularly to find out what the Clean Energy Council has to report from COP28, and follow the Clean Energy Council for the latest updates on LinkedIn, Twitter/X and Facebook.
