Progress on climate change has been too slow. But it’s been real

The agreement at the conference of the parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent COPs, decreeing that this year’s should see the first “global stocktake” of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer.

As the world gathers in Dubai for the 28th COP, the assessment of the first part of that stocktake is in some ways surprisingly positive. At the time of the Paris COP, the global warming expected by 2100 if policies did not change was more than 3°C above pre-industrial levels. If policies in place today are followed, central estimates put it around 2.5-2.9°C, though the uncertainties are large. That is still so high as to be disastrous for billions. But it is also a marked improvement.