Five short words and a moral reckoning

This chapter investigates how the stocktake might harness the power of moral language and argument – and avoid the risks of over-moralization, divisiveness and acrimony. It explains the official mandate the Paris Agreement sets down for the global stocktake, focusing especially on its equity dimensions. The chapter explores a potential tension in the mandate between assessing 'collective progress' and 'progress in the light of equity'. It considers three desiderata for the stocktake, and argues that avoiding any serious engagement with the equity-dimensions of any individual party's Nationally Determined Contributions' will condemn the stocktake to irrelevance. The Paris Agreement developed at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties in December 2015 included the prospect of a 'Global Stocktake' in 2023. The stocktake will assess the collective progress towards achieving the Agreement's purpose in the light of equity. These five short words constitute the strongest-ever indication that some type of formal, equity-based consideration of states' NDCs could occur.