COP28 Launches Urgent Global Climate Action Amidst Hottest Year on Record

Ambassador Carlos Fuller

COP 28 kicked off in Dubai on Thursday, addressing record-breaking temperatures globally. The conference aims to accelerate global climate action as the impacts of the climate crisis intensify. This year’s COP marks the conclusion of the first “global stocktake” on the progress of the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, the assessment reveals a shortfall in efforts to limit temperature rise to one point five degrees Celsius by the end of the century.  This, according to Belize’s Chief Negotiation Ambassador Carlos Fuller, is really bad news.

Ambassador Carlos Fuller, Belize’s Chief Negotiator

“It is really, really bad news and I think that is why it is important that the global stocktake really says it very vocally and we admit to ourselves, we have so far failed to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement. And we need to recognize that we need to use the global stocktake to look forward to say look because we know that we have not met it then all of us have to do much, much more especially within this critical decade up to 2030 to put on back on track to one point five. So, that to me is the key message that must come out of the global stocktake.”

Hipolito Novelo

“Do you have hope, like true hope, that we can do it?”

Ambassador Carlos Fuller

“We can do it if we have the political will to do it. That is still to be determined because I think to many countries are still looking ‘it is the other country that needs to do it and not me’. And I think we need to recognize we are all in same boat together and we all need to work as hard as possible to achieve that target.”