According to the UNFCCC, the Global Stocktake (GST) is defined as the mechanism for assessing progress in responding to the climate crisis and implementing the measures of the Paris Agreement at the global level.
This mechanism is established by Article 14 of the Paris Agreement, which states that the Conference of the Parties ” shall periodically take stock of the implementation of this Agreement to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this Agreement and its long-term goals.”
Objectives of the Global Stocktake
The objectives of the Global Stocktake can be classified into three categories:
- Mitigation
- Adaptation
- Means of implementation and support or, in other words, climate finance.
Mitigation objectives refer to those measures that directly target the cause of climate change (greenhouse gas emissions) in order to reduce the impact this will have in the future. With the Global Stocktake, countries will assess their progress at the global level by aggregating national data on emission reductions.
Regarding adaptation goals, the GST will provide information on efforts to strengthen resilience against the effects of climate change already occurring today. However, achieving this is a more complicated task than measuring the effectiveness of mitigation measures.
Finally, the goal concerning means of implementation will provide information on financial, technological, and capacity-building support that more developed countries must provide to countries that are most affected by the impacts of climate change.
Each country can then use the information collected in the Global Stocktake to update and improve its mitigation efforts, contributing to ” enhancing international cooperation for climate action.”
The first GST: From its inception to the COP28
The GST is a process consisting of three phases, which last over a period of two years.
- Data collection phase, where each Party to the Paris Agreement gathers data into a report that includes progress at the national level in terms of mitigation, adaptation, and finance.
- Technical assessment phase, represented by a series of dialogues to assess the information that was gathered during the data collection phase.
- Results consideration phase, during which countries will discuss key results and political implications. This phase, which occured for the first time at COP28, aimed to encourage discussions and negotiations on topics such as fossil fuel phase-out or the Adaptation Fund. Furthermore, each country can make use of the GST’s main findings to improve its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), .
Evaluation and discussion on Global Stocktake is a process occurring every five years. It started with the Paris Agreement, and the first evaluation took place at COP28 in 2023.
Photo by Ala J Graczyk
