The Global Stocktake (GST) is a mandatory, five-yearly review process established under the Paris Agreement to monitor its implementation and evaluate the collective global progress toward achieving its long-term goals. It was created in 2015 as a core component of the Paris Agreement to solve the problem of insufficient national climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which were initially not enough to limit global warming to the target of well below 2°C and ideally 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The GST is the mechanism intended to progressively "ratchet up" climate ambition over time.
The mechanism is outlined in Article 14 of the Paris Agreement and takes place every five years, with the first one concluding at COP28 in 2023. It works by assessing collective progress across three areas: mitigation (emissions reduction), adaptation (building resilience to climate impacts), and means of implementation and support (finance and technology transfer). The process has three phases: information collection, a technical assessment of the information, and a political consideration of the outputs. The findings are intended to inform countries as they prepare their next round of enhanced NDCs, which are due in 2025.
The GST is intrinsically connected to the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is a key part of the "ratchet mechanism" that encourages countries to scale up their climate action. The first GST, which concluded at COP28 in Dubai, resulted in the UAE Consensus, which called for a "transition away from fossil fuels" and included specific efforts like tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. This outcome did not replace or amend the GST itself, but rather provided the first set of political messages and recommendations to strengthen future climate action, with the next GST scheduled for 2028.