TURNING BOLD PROMISES INTO CONCRETE PROGESS: REFLECTING ON THE UK’S COP PRESIDENCY

The UK’s Regional Director for Southeast Asia on Climate and Energy, Tom Moody, reflects on the progress made since COP26 and the regional opportunities.

COP27 in Sharm El-Sheik in November 2022 marked the end of the UK’s COP Presidency. We held global leadership of climate ambition for an unprecedented three years, over a period in which the world faced similarly unprecedented challenges.

The need to tackle the climate emergency has become notably more urgent. Scientists have warned that we are approaching the point of no return, and the planet itself echoed that alarm, from Australian wildfires to devastating floods in Pakistan.

We have battled a common COVID threat, and as economic activity declined, we glimpsed a shared future that convinced people of the benefit of collective ambition.

Key technologies that will power the transition have matured and become affordable: solar power has become the cheapest form of energy in history, battery costs have fallen 85% in the last decade, and in the UK, our latest auctions have achieved record low prices for offshore wind.

Our COP26 Presidency held this sense of momentous risk and opportunity as we convened the largest diplomatic event on UK soil since the Second World War. And most of those I’ve spoken to since, in the UK and around this region, would agree that the UK delivered. During our Presidency, SE Asian countries responsible for about 85% of greenhouse gas emissions committed to phasing them out entirely by mid-century.

Globally, the Glasgow Climate Pact represents one of the most significant increases in climate ambition since the Paris Agreement: a full 1c fall in projected temperatures by 2100 if those commitments are fully implemented.

Recognising that crucial final point, we have focused our Presidency on turning bold promises into concrete progress. With support from Singapore and Norway, Glasgow resolved the technical barriers to carbon trading between countries which will unlock faster and more accountable flows of money towards faster decarbonisation and restoration of nature. We used our coincident G7 Presidency to launch a new way for the UK and other major donors like the US, EU, and Japan to build major climate finance packages for countries that need the most help to cut big emissions. Called Just Energy Transition Partnerships, they will help the biggest fossil fuel users like South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam. The Prime Minister also announced a trebling of UK spending on adaptation to climate change by 2025.

Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has put huge economic stress on many countries as they emerge from the pandemic. But it has also made the relative cost of clean energy more competitive, and articulated an even clearer security rationale for freeing ourselves from fossil fuels. As a result, their use will peak earlier – in 2025 –before beginning their final decline.

I’m proud of what the UK has achieved over such an important period of human history, keeping a liveable future alive. But we are not complacent, and that brighter future remains – as our COP26 President Alok Sharma put it – “on life support”. Our work with Singapore to build the UK’s first Green Economy Framework Agreement is a sign of how important green growth will be to our most important bilateral relationships. And as ASEAN countries emphasised when we became their newest Dialogue Partner last year, there is much we can and should do to continue our COP26 legacy through our closer relationship with this vital region.

About the author

Tom Moody oversees the UK Government’s climate change and energy strategy in the ASEAN region, and mobilisation of regional policy, development programming, and commercial work to deliver it. This includes directing the UK’s unique network of climate change and policy attaches across SE Asia, who carry out policy advisory and engagement to raise ambition across the region. His career prior to this included overseeing HMG’s £50m portfolio of Prosperity Fund programmes of technical assistance in the South Africa region, the UK Overseas Territories, as well as domestic policy on education, justice, and police accountability.