The United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Brazil this week in New York reiterated their promise to lead by example and produce by the end of this year nationally determined contributions (NDCs) aligned with the Paris pact’s objective of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

But they failed to announce any numbers or flesh out what a 1.5C-compatible NDC means for them. Observers keen to understand how the three nations will reconcile a science-based climate plan with their expanding fossil fuel ambitions were left disappointed.

“We witnessed a worrying case of cognitive dissonance,” said Romain Ioualalen, global policy manager with Oil Change International, which campaigns against fossil fuels. “At a time of grave climate urgency, the COP Troika is failing to deliver the leadership and clarity needed to raise climate ambition.”

The Troika has previously indicated that there is no universally accepted definition of what a 1.5°C-aligned climate plan should or should not include. “It’s up to each one to decide,” Brazil’s head of delegation, Liliam Chagas, said at the Bonn climate talks in June, raising fears of “1.5-washing”.

‘Ten tests’ for a 1.5C climate plan

That view is not shared by many climate experts and campaigners who are issuing suggestions for what such an NDC should look like.

A group of leading civil society organisations this week published an open letter that outlines “ten essential tests” to determine whether countries’ plans meet the 1.5C goal – seen as safer than the other, higher ceiling of “well below 2 degrees” set in the Paris Agreement.

The tests outlined in the letter include a commitment to end fossil fuel expansion, detailed and measurable targets both for the whole economy and for specific sectors such as transport, building and agriculture, provisions for wealthier countries to scale up climate finance, and measures to protect natural ecosystems and make food systems greener.

UN climate chief warns of “two-speed” global energy transition

“A lot of the failure or success of [the] Paris [Agreement] is going to be determined in the next eight or nine months as countries put forward their next round of NDCs,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at E3G and veteran watcher of the UN climate process. “If these don’t step up and meet the mark, it’s really our last chance… this is a critical moment.”

To limit average temperature rise below 1.5C, scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say global emissions need to peak before 2025, shrink 60% by 2035 from their 2019 level, and continue on a steep downward trajectory, reaching net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide by around mid-century.

Fossil fuels in the spotlight

The next round of updated NDCs, due by next February, should turn the goals agreed at COP28 last year into practice, advocates say. In the energy sector, that means laying out plans to triple renewable energy capacity and double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030 – and, crucially, transition away from fossil fuels.

Climate experts and campaigners have stressed that a 1.5C-aligned NDC needs to include an explicit commitment to no new coal, oil and gas exploration, as well as credible targets for slashing existing production and eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.

“Claiming to lead on climate while continuing the expansion of oil, gas and coal production is indefensible at this point,” said Natalie Jones, policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. “Governments need a plan for reducing reliance on fossil fuel production,” she added.

Senegalese banker Ibrahima Cheikh Diong picked to lead new loss and damage fund

Fossil-fuel reduction targets will be closely watched as a litmus test for the ambition of major hydrocarbon producers, including the Troika of COP presidencies. The UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil are set to increase their combined oil and gas production by 33% by 2035, according to a new analysis by Oil Change International.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aims to turn his country into the world’s fourth largest petrostate (it now ranks ninth), opening new extraction frontiers both on land and offshore, including in the Amazon. This plan contrasts with Brazil’s promise to present a new NDC  aligned with the 1.5C temperature goal this year – reaffirmed by Lula himself in his speech at the UN General Assembly this week.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

“As long as the Brazilian government insists on extracting oil and gas, especially in the Amazon, talking about decarbonising the economy and a fair energy transition is a pure exercise in rhetoric,” said Ilan Zugman, Latin America managing director for campaign group 350.org.

Azerbaijan has similarly come under renewed criticism this week with researchers at Climate Action Tracker (CAT) slamming its existing climate goals as “critically insufficient”.

The scientific watchdog said Azerbaijan was among “a tiny group” of countries that had weakened the targets in its latest NDC, published in late 2023, contradicting the Paris Agreement’s requirement that each climate action blueprint should be more ambitious than its predecessor. CAT singled out the Caspian country’s plans to expand fossil fuel production by 30% over the coming decade and its rising methane emissions.

Azerbaijan is now working on a new NDC that should be in line with the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, the government said.

Looking beyond energy

But, while energy is a crucial piece of the puzzle, it is not the only economic sector that needs a dramatic transformation in order to limit global warming to 1.5C. Agriculture, food production, industry and transport all contribute a large share of greenhouse gas emissions.

Experts say that spelling out specific emissions reduction targets for each sector can help guide policy-making across different government departments and attract larger investments.

COP29 aims to boost battery storage and grids for renewables, as pledges proliferate

E3G’s Meyer told journalists that “a robust consultation and transparent engagement process” are also key to building a 1.5C-aligned NDC. “If you’re going to get buy-in to implementation of the NDCs on the ground – which is the real key to reducing emissions – you need all those sectors engaged and backing the plan,” he added.

Mike Hemsley, deputy director at the Energy Transitions Commission think-tank, told Climate Home that sectoral targets will also play a pivotal role in engaging the private sector, alongside roadmaps and policy packages to implement them. “There’s increasing recognition that if you don’t have that in there, you’re not going to actually realise the ambition you set out in the NDCs,” he said.

‘Creative accounting’ trap

With goals only as good as the measures taken to meet them, a significant gap remains between the already-deficient set of national climate targets on paper and action in the real world.

Civil society groups say that governments need to outline how they are planning to hit their NDC targets in a clear and transparent way without resorting to “creative accounting”, as CAT warns.

A major sticking point is the reliance on forests and other carbon sinks to bring down emissions, because of the complex calculations involved and the unpredictable risk of carbon being released back into the atmosphere if, for instance, trees are decimated by a forest fire.

Australia, for example, has been accused by CAT of creating an “illusion of progress” towards its NDC targets by constantly revising its carbon sink assessment upwards and allowing more room for increased fossil fuel emissions.

E3G’s Meyer is sceptical that, despite the promises of 1.5C -aligned NDCs, countries will step up with the level of ambition needed – and said the task for COP30 host Brazil next year should be to encourage countries to work out how to fill the gaps.

“We need to see [the next NDCs] as a floor not a ceiling, and say what more can we do to supercharge ambition,” he said.

(Reporting by Matteo Civillini and Megan Rowling; editing by Megan Rowling)

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Simon Stiell told investors at an event in New York that the efforts of many developing countries to adopt more renewables like solar and wind power “are hamstrung by sky-high costs of capital… or mired in spiralling debt crises”.

Because the “mega-trend” in clean energy is occurring unevenly, most investors are missing out on “gigantic, unrealised opportunities” outside of wealthy countries, he added, warning that this also poses a major threat to global action to curb climate change and avoid its worst impacts.

“I’ll be blunt: if more developing economies don’t see more of this growing deluge of climate investment, we will quickly entrench a dangerous two-speed global transition,” Stiell said.

UN climate chief calls for “exponential changes” to boost investment in Africa

Such an imbalance is both “unacceptable” and “self-defeating” for all economies, he emphasised. It would make halving global emissions by 2030 to keep warming in check “near impossible”, he explained, as well as causing havoc in international supply chains as extreme weather bites.

The disruptions experienced by businesses during the COVID19 pandemic “will seem like a minor hiccup compared to what an unchecked climate crisis will inflict” in an interdependent world economy, Stiell warned. “If a two-speed global transition sets in, ultimately everyone loses, and loses badly,” he added.

IEA weighs in

A report issued on Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA), showing how to meet the energy transition goals agreed at last year’s COP28 climate summit, noted that advanced economies and China account for more than four out of every five dollars invested in clean energy since the Paris Agreement was signed in late 2015.

The IEA called for stronger and more stable policies to attract private investment in clean energy in other regions, together with larger, better-targeted international support spurred partly by a new climate finance goal due to be agreed at COP29 this November.

The agency also pointed out that, although governments are worried about how to make the energy transition socially acceptable, globally they are still spending nine times more making fossil fuels cheaper than on subsidising clean energy for consumers.

COP29 aims to boost battery storage and grids for renewables, as pledges proliferate

The report said that the COP28 goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030 is within reach – but meeting it will not automatically mean that more renewable electricity will clean up power systems, lower costs for consumers and slash fossil fuel use.

Achieving those aims will require complementary efforts to enable clean electrification – including building and modernising 25 million kilometres of electricity grids by 2030 and adding 1,500 gigawatts (GW) of energy storage capacity by that year, largely with batteries.

Fast-tracking a green future

With businesses and financiers gathered in New York for the annual Climate Week NYC, alongside leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), international agencies and green groups emphasised the need for concerted action by the public and private sectors to put internationally agreed energy targets into practice.

Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said the goals set at COP28 could put the global energy sector “on a fast track towards a more secure, affordable and sustainable future”. “To ensure the world doesn’t miss this huge opportunity, the focus must shift rapidly to implementation,” he added.

Other organisations also outlined key ways to make this happen. Mission 2025 – a coalition of businesses, sub-national governments and researchers, among others – appealed to governments to set “investment-positive policies” that can provide confidence to mobilise large-scale finance for the energy transition.

Using data from the Energy Transitions Commission, an international think-tank, Mission 2025 identified three such policies that have already worked in industralised countries and some large developing economies to help boost finance for renewables and electric vehicles.

It recommended fixing gigawatt targets for renewable energy deployment at the national level as the UK and India have done for example; derisking investment in renewable energy – by offering support such as competitive long-term contracts or tax credits – as in Europe, the India, China and the United States; and setting a date of 2035 or earlier to end sales of petrol and diesel passenger vehicles, as the European Union has done.

Global push to triple renewables requires responsible mining of minerals

Mission 2025 said these policies should be extended to other places, and could roughly double today’s investment in clean power and electric vehicles to $1 trillion of the $3.5 trillion needed annually for the energy sector to play its part in limiting warming to 1.5C.

Mike Hemsley, deputy director of the Energy Transitions Commission, told Climate Home these policies are as cheap as their fossil fuel equivalents, so there is no net cost to countries from implementing them as part of the updated national climate plans governments are now preparing – including for lower-income and emerging economies.

“We hope that this can give them some confidence to say if we set ambitious policy, we can attract private investment, realise some of our own goals and not necessarily cost ourselves anything – all for the good of the climate,” he said, adding that strong policies can also help lower investment risk in developing countries.

Renewables cheaper than fossil fuels

Research released on Tuesday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) at the Global Renewables Summit during UNGA showed that with renewable power capacity additions setting a record of 473 gigawatts in 2023, four-fifths of newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable projects had lower costs than their fossil fuel-fired alternatives.

Power from solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, it found, has seen its cost plummet to around $0.04 per kilowatt hour in just one year, making it 56% cheaper than fossil fuel and nuclear options in 2023. Overall, the renewable power deployed globally since 2000 has saved up to $409 billion in fuel costs in the power sector, IRENA added.

“Thanks to low-cost renewables in the global market, policy makers have an immediate solution at hand to reduce fossil fuels dependency, limit the economic and social damage of carbon-intensive energy use, drive economic development and harness energy security benefits,” IRENA’s Director-General Francesco La Camera said in a statement.

(Reporting by Megan Rowling, editing by Joe Lo)

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The U-turn comes after nearly 80 Nobel prizewinners and world leaders hit out at the deletion of any references to fossil fuels in a previous version of the negotiating text for the Summit of the Future taking place in New York during this year’s UN General Assembly.

The UN has billed the high-level event as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate global action” on issues including climate change, sustainable development and peace. Member states are expected to agree on an “ambitious, concise and action-oriented” pact seen as a blueprint for boosting multilateral cooperation.

In the latest draft, published on Thursday, world leaders “decide to […] transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.

The language closely mirrors the landmark agreement struck at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai last year with the exception of a call to “accelerating action in this critical decade” which is absent from the draft.

The new Pact for the Future draft “cements the [COP28] commitment”, according to Alex Rafalowicz, executive director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “If the language stays, it’s clear there’s no going back. This is a first step, but declarations alone will not suffice. We need to build on this outcome with immediate, decisive action and concrete plans.”

Controversy over fossil fuels

UN Secretary-General António Guterres first proposed the Summit of the Future back in 2021 when he laid out his vision for global cooperation in the coming decades. The gathering will bring together governments, UN agencies, civil society organisations, academic institutions and the private sector on September 22 and 23.

Governments have been negotiating the text of the pact for nearly a year, with Germany and Namibia coordinating efforts as co-facilitators of the summit.

Last January they released a “zero draft” based on member states’ initial inputs and submissions from civil society, academia and the private sector. It included a reference to countries “accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”.

But any mention of fossil fuels disappeared from a second draft published in mid-July following another round of consultations.

Leaders are cutting fossil fuel finance – next comes unlocking clean energy for all

That prompted strong condemnation from climate action leaders. In a letter to governments, Nobel Prize laureates – including Bangladesh’s new interim leader Muhammad Yunus and former Irish President Mary Robinson – said they were “gravely concerned” about the absence of any mention of fossil fuels, which they called “one of the greatest threats facing the world today”.

The burning of coal, oil and gas is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming. Any pathway to limit warming to the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C requires a significant decline in the use of fossil fuels by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Backslide fears

In addition to a shift away from fossil fuels, the latest Pact for the Future draft also follows in the footsteps of the COP28 agreement in calling for an acceleration in the “development and deployment” of renewable energy and “other zero and low-emission technologies”.

While the Summit of the Future text does not qualify these technologies, the Dubai deal explicitly referred to nuclear energy, as well as emissions abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilization and storage (CCUS).

Sultan Al Jaber and Simon Stiell celebrate as the Cop28 agreement is passed (Photos: Cop28/Mahmoud Khaled)

The COP28 agreement adopted by nearly 200 countries was widely hailed as a historic achievement signposting an end to the fossil fuel era. But climate campaigners have since grown worried that countries are backsliding on their promises and attempting to weaken their commitment to wean the world off dirty energy.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, for example, claimed last January that the transition away from fossil fuels was just one of several “choices” on an “à la carte menu” offered by the COP28 pact.

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at Oil Change International, told Climate Home that any attempt to weaken or reverse the COP28 decision “is like playing a losing hand with billions of lives that would put any chance of avoiding a 1.5C breach out of reach”.

“Civil society should not have to be the fighting voice of reason to keep fossil fuel phase-out on the table and align international declarations with science,” he added.

(Reporting by Matteo Civillini; editing by Megan Rowling)

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Instead of a long procession of leaders, the stage would be given only to those with “credible policies and plans” to keep the goals of the Paris Agreement alive.

On Wednesday, the absence of most of the world’s biggest polluters spoke volumes. Three-quarters of the G20 nations were left outside the door, with the United States, China, the United Kingdom and India pushed off the guestlist.

Among those that made the cut, there were a handful of slightly improved goals and climate finance promises – nothing groundbreaking.

“This wasn’t a dramatic pledging or deal-making summit”, says Tom Evans, an analyst at E3G. “But it put forward a group of leaders showing who is ahead and isolated those who are laggards. It was trying to show what is possible instead of diluting the level of ambition.”

Leaders from 34 governments along with seven non-government bodies, including the World Bank, the London mayor and the governor of California, addressed the summit. Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, the EU, and South Africa were the most high-profile speakers.

All-out on fossil fuels

Perhaps the most striking feature of the event was increasingly fiery rhetoric on fossil fuels.

California governor Gavin Newsom started by accusing the industry of “playing each and every one of us in this room for fools”. The state has recently filed a lawsuit against major oil companies.

My message to the UN:

This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. It’s not complicated. pic.twitter.com/bHolZrtGyP

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 21, 2023

Those words were echoed by Chile’s Gabriel Boric, who said “the climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis so we need to leave fossil fuels behind”. His regional counterpart, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro came out against fossil fuels despite the country being a major global exporter of coal and oil.

“We depend on those exports, we live on those exports,” Petro said. “However, the real goal for all countries is aiming for zero production and supply of coal, oil and gas in the short term. If we don’t focus on that life will not be saved.”

China opposes ‘not realistic’ global fossil fuel phase-out

Catherine Abreu, founder of Destination Zero, hailed the speeches as “game-changing” from the perspective of the global climate regime. “We saw once and for all the connection being made between climate change and fossil fuels”, she told Climate Home News. “As shocking as it is, that is revolutionary for the international space.”

Brazil boosts targets

Brazil brought the biggest news to the table when it announced widely trailed plans to undo former president Jair Bolsonaro’s cuts to its climate ambition and strengthen its targets further.

Lula scraps Bolsonaro’s cuts to Brazilian climate target ambition

“We will enhance Brazil’s emission reduction commitments from 37% to 48% by 2025, and from 50% to 53% by 2030,” said environment minister Marina Silva, who stepped in after President Lula reportedly fell ill. “This is despite the fact that our historical responsibilities are incomparably smaller than those of the rich countries.”

Among the major European countries, which made up the bulk of the attendees, only France came with fresh commitments. It announced it would give €1.61 billion ($1.75bn) to the Green Climate Fund’s four-yearly fundraising round. While this is slightly more in euros than France gave last time in 2019, the changing exchange rate means it is less in US dollar terms.

The EU’s president Ursula von Der Leyen repeated the bloc’s battle lines for Cop28, pushing for global emissions to peak by 2025 and unabated fossil fuels to be phased out “well before” 2050. Germany’s Olaf Scholz restated his country’s commitment to renewable energy, underlining an agreement to triple capacity by 2030 struck at the G20.

Green Climate Fund may have to curb ambition as funding stagnates

Saleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi campaigner and adviser to the Cop28 presidency, said he was left underwhelmed by the lack of commitments, especially on the loss and damage fund and on adaptation. He told Climate Home News that, while the summit was “an excellent initiative”, it was ultimately “long on talk and short on delivery”.

Oscar Soria from Avaaz, who was at the summit, was disappointed, but not surprised, with the outcome. "The world is on fire, of course, we were expecting more concrete announcements. Nobody said anything meaningful on subsidies to fossil fuels, for example."

The road to Cop28

The climate ambition summit was billed as one of the crucial stepping stones to building a consensus ahead of Cop28. Securing a deal in Dubai will inevitably require a strategy to bring the countries left outside of the room in New York back to the table.

Closing off the summit, Antonio Guterres urged the attendees to "take no prisoners" and "bring together all those that you can bring together with you".

But E3G's Tom Evans says "the absence of key power players highlighted how difficult climate politics has become".

"The UAE will now be thinking of the strategy to bring them back on board. The summit helped in showing where people are sat with ten weeks to go," he added.

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Christopher Loeak, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, addresses the 68th session of the General Assembly. (Source: UN)

By Sophie Yeo

The President of the Marshall Islands presented the recently adopted Majuro Declaration on climate change to Ban Ki-moon as a “Pacific gift” at the UN General Assembly last week.

The Declaration was signed at the Pacific Islands Forum last month, where leaders from the region hoped to raise awareness of the urgency of the situation in the Marshall Islands in particular, where rising sea levels threaten to submerge the low lying land.

It on calls on all governments to do as much as they can to halt climate change, and to take specific emissions reduction pledges that will help them to achieve this end.

President Christopher Loeak presented the Declaration to Ban Ki-moon to go alongside his own efforts to stimulate a new wave of climate leadership. During the General Assembly, Ban called for leaders worldwide to come together in 2014 for a ‘Climate Summit’, which would hopefully pave the way towards a legally binding agreement in 2015.

Speaking at the General Assembly, Loeak said: “Climate change is a risk that demands direct political ownership, and it is well time that other Leaders stand alongside the Pacific in creating the statesmanship so urgently needed.

“Simply repeating well-worn negotiation slogans will get the world nowhere – it is time for new solutions. I strongly urge my fellow Leaders to engage “eye to eye” at the Secretary-General’s climate summit next year- never has the need been so dire for true statesmanship.”

During a meeting with the Pacific island leaders during the Assembly, Ban said: “Climate change is the greatest single threat to our sustainable development agenda and to our long-term security.

“Pacific Islands are among those that contribute least to global warming, yet suffer most. I congratulate you on the adoption of the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership. I commend your resolve to be ‘Climate Leaders’ and I join you in your call to others [to lead through action].”

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Pic: UN/Mark Garten

By Sophie Yeo

Ban Ki-moon today called upon leaders to come together in a Climate Summit one year from now to stimulate action on creating a legally binding deal in 2015.

Speaking at the opening of the UN General Assembly, the Secretary-General invited world leaders to attend a summit in 2014, equipped with bold pledges as the world attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the world below dangerous levels of global warming.

2015 is an important year in the climate change calendar, with the world set to come together under the UNFCCC, the branch of the UN responsible for coordinating climate action, to arrange a globally binding deal, as well as marking the end of the Millennium Development Goals.

These will be replaced with a set of Sustainable Development Goals, which are expected to reinvigorate the UN and stimulate greater action on environmental degradation as the world moves towards what it calls an “age of sustainable development”.

“Let us seize the 2015 challenge: a final push for the MDGs, new directions on energy and climate, and an inspiring new development framework,” said Ban, speaking at the UN conference in New York today.

It is hoped that the Summit will stimulate governments, business, finance, industry and civil society to contribute new commitments that can then be scaled upwards and replicated, helping the world shift towards a low-carbon economy.

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and UN Special Envoy to the Great Lakes, told RTCC in an interview this month, “I believe and support the idea that we need a new kind of leadership and I’m glad that the secretary general has decided to call together the heads of state in 2014 as part of that need for leadership.”

Any future climate negotiations from the UN are expected to take into account the IPCC report, the comprehensive review of the climate science since 2007, that is being released this Friday.

The report will confirm that it is 95% certain that the planet is warming and humans are responsible.

“Our planet and our scientists are sending a clear message, as we will see once again this week when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues its latest assessment,” said Ban.

He added, “There is opportunity amid this peril – a chance to change the way we do business, plan our cities, fuel our homes and factories, and move our goods and ourselves.  A low-carbon path beckons – a path that can create jobs and improve public health while safeguarding the environment.”

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Declaration is a collaboration between the Mary Robinson Foundation and the World Resources Institute (Pic: Flickr / CIAT International Center for Tropical Agriculture)

By Sophie Yeo

A collection of leading thinkers on climate have launched a declaration today, intending to spur action towards the creation of an ambitious international agreement in 2015.

The Declaration outlines five priorities for securing a just and sustainable future, which includes: empowering those most affected by climate change, reducing emissions, establishing a new investment model, enforcing accountability, and building strong legal frameworks.

Representatives from politics, science, business, civil society and academia have come together under the auspices of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ) to write the Declaration.

Signatories to the declaration include the the former Prime Minister of Mozambique Luisa Dias Diogo and former President of Chile Ricardo Lagos. Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, and Andrew Steer, President of the WRI, have also put their names to the document.

All are members of a High Level Advisory Committee, assembled by the MRFCJ and the WRI, to stimulate an influential dialogue on the issue of climate justice.

“The time for radical leadership on climate change is now. With 2015 set as the deadline for both a new climate agreement and the post-2015 development agenda, we are at the point in human development when we need to act to protect,” said Mary Robinson.

“The rights of the most vulnerable in society are already undermined by climate change and this injustice must be addressed now. Equally for the sake of generations to come, it is our duty, as citizens of the world, to realise a new model of sustainable growth and development that is supported by strong legal frameworks.”

The report comes at a busy time in the climate change calendar, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due to publish their potentially game-changing report at the end of this week. The UN General Assembly is also currently taking place in New York, where Ban Ki-moon is to call leaders to come together for a high level climate change summit in 2014.

In six weeks’ time, the UN climate change body will meet in Poland to attempt to make headway on setting up a framework in which a legally binding global agreement can be met in Paris in 2015.

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