What is COP28
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28).November 30 to December 12, 2023InExpo City, Dubai, UAEHeld. Since the first United Nations Climate Change Conference in 1992, it has become an annual event.
COP28 is expected to bring together more than 70,000 participants, including heads of state, industry leaders, academics and representatives of civil society organizations. Such high-level participation will make the meeting an important platform for global climate action, and help promote more countries and parties to take practical and effective measures to address climate change.
In early 2021, the United Arab Emirates offered to host COP28. In November 2021, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced that the UAE would host COP28.
The UAE is the first in the Middle East to commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UAE signed the Paris Agreement on 21 September 2016, making it the first country in the region to sign the Paris Agreement. The country has invested $50 billion globally in clean energy and has pledged to invest another $50 billion by 2030. In November 2022, the UAE agreed to work with the United States to invest an additional $100 billion in clean energy.
What are the topics at COP28?
COP28 UAE President Sultan Al Dhabel laid out the long-awaited action plan for COP28 at the ** meeting in Brussels, which covers all the essentials of climate action, building on the 2015 Paris Agreement and divided into four pillars, namely the rapid transition to a low-CO2 world of restoration climate finance, a focus on human lives and livelihoods, and full inclusion. As a result, the meeting focused particularly on the negotiation of the topics of adaptation, financing and loss and damage.
1.Adaptation
The topic is about how to help countries and communities most affected by climate change cope with challenges such as warming, extreme weather and rising sea levels.
2.Financing
The topic addresses the issue of adequate global funding to combat climate change to support developing countries in achieving their emission reduction and adaptation goals.
3.Loss and Damage
The topic is about how to help countries and communities already suffering from the impacts of climate change get the support they need to cope and recover.
In addition, COP28 will push the world to take stronger measures to achieve the global warming limit set out in the Paris Agreement to 1Targets within 5 degrees Celsius. These include countries submitting updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to strengthen emissions reduction commitments, accelerating the rollout of renewable energy and clean technologies, and scaling up climate finance.
China and COP28's Past and Present
China was one of the first parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992It is also one of the initiators of the United Nations' most important scientific research body on climate change, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For a long time, China has attached great importance to the issue of climate change, regarded actively responding to climate change as a major strategy for national economic and social development, and regarded green and low-carbon development as an important part of the construction of ecological civilization, and has taken a series of actions to make important contributions to addressing global climate change.
China was the first developing country to formulate and implement a national plan to address climate change.
In June 2007, China issued the "National Plan for Addressing Climate Change", which comprehensively expounded China's response to climate change by 2010, which is not only China's first comprehensive policy document to address climate change, but also the first national plan for a developing country in this field.
In November 2013, China released its first strategic plan for adaptation to climate change, the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change.
In September 2020, President ** announced at the United Nations General Assembly that China would strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and further announced the strengthening of China's nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement in December of the same year, demonstrating China's determination to contribute to global sustainable development, and at the same time putting forward new requirements for the comprehensive green transformation of China's economic and social development.
In October 2021, China released two important documents: the Opinions of the Communist Party of China on Completely, Accurately, and Comprehensively Implementing the New Development Concept and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality, a guiding document on national climate action, and the Action Plan for Carbon Peaking Before 2030, which is an action plan for carbon peaking. These two documents are part of China's "1+N" policy framework to achieve its "dual carbon" goals, and guide China's climate action.
In May 2022, Xie Zhenhua, China's Special Envoy for Climate Change, pointed out at the 2022 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting that China has always been actively implementing pragmatic actions to address climate change, making a solemn commitment to "strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060", and announced that it would not build new coal power projects abroad. China has set up a leading group for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, built and implemented a dual-carbon "1+N" policy system, and actively promoted low-carbon development and green transformation.
China Environment Publishing Group and COP28
According to the arrangement of the organizing committee, it is jointly sponsored by China Environment Publishing Group, Sun Yat-sen University and China Society for Urban Studies, and undertaken by Environmental Protection Magazine, School of Environmental Science and Engineering of Sun Yat-sen University, and Guangdong Provincial Green and Low-Carbon Development Professional Committee"Telling China's Stories on Climate Change and Climate Governance of Global Low-Carbon Cities and Urban Agglomerations".The side event will be held on the opening day of COP28 on November 30 local time in Dubai.
The conference invited representatives from Chinese and foreign cities, enterprises, research institutions, international institutions and other representatives to share and exchange climate stories and climate action experiences of Chinese cities, publicize China's policies, actions and achievements in addressing climate change, and demonstrate China's firm determination and responsibility to address climate changeDiscuss how to better carry out urban climate action, and strengthen exchanges and cooperation between domestic climate change response work and the international community.