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As the ongoing UN COP-28 climate summit comes to a close in Dubai on December 12, 2023, a draft of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) said all countries must have in place a detailed plan by 2025, to adapt to the current and future impacts of climate change in their countries, and must demonstrate progress in implementing such a plan by 2030. Amid ever-growing climate risks, countries, especially smaller, debt-ridden ones, have an enormous challenge balancing their economic aspirations with mitigation goals.
Jacob Koshy, who has been closely tracking developments at the summit, reports on key takeaways from the document. Read his other dispatches from the summit here: including this profile of Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, ‘The Grand Vizier of COP28’
Loss and damage
Wasting no time at the summit, member-countries agreed to operationalise the loss and damage [L&D] fund on the very first day. A significant development, no doubt, but the L&D fund’s contents need to be easily accessible to those who need it most, in timely fashion, sans pedantic bureaucratic hurdles, and in sufficient quantities. As things stand, there is little guarantee that any of these requirements will be met, The Hindu’s editorial noted. “While the L&D fund is finally online, a lot more needs to be done,” it contented.
India watch
What was India’s position at the summit? Was it all climate talk or did PM Narendra Modi attend to some other business as well, on the summit’s sidelines? In her latest episode of Worldview, Suhasini Haidar brings us the broader outcomes from the crucial international forum. Watch it here.
Top 5
- Suhasini Haidar writes on‘A dark shadow on New Delhi’s credibility’, in the wake of the recent American indictment against an Indian national for targeting wanted Khalistani separatists
- Happymon Jacob writes on India’s neighbourhood dilemmas, arguing that most South Asian states are sceptical of India’s primacy
- T. Ramakrishnan on bridging the trust deficit between India and Sri Lanka
- We interviewed Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the leftist JVP in Sri Lanka, who is topping recent polls as the most preferred choice for President
- The hypocrisy of Western democracy: The root cause of Western complicity in Palestinian oppression lies in colonialism and imperialism, argues Nissim Mannathukkaren
