SPACE

How to Watch SpaceX Launch Space Force’s Spaceplane for the First Time

George Dvorsky
Fri, December 8, 2023 

The X-37B spaceplane.



The X-37B spaceplane.

For the first time, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will attempt to deliver the Pentagon’s spaceplane to low Earth orbit. The mission marks the seventh for the mysterious spacecraft, aiming to expand the Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment and test new technologies.


The Falcon Heavy is slated to launch at 8:15 p.m ET on Sunday, December 10 from launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Both side boosters will attempt vertical landings shortly after launch (Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together). The event will be livestreamed on SpaceX’s account on X, previously known as Twitter.

The mission “will expand the United States Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment by experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies,” Space Force said in a statement. “These tests are integral in ensuring safe, stable, and secure operations in space for all users of the domain.”

For its seventh mission, the X-37B will operate in new orbital alignments and carry a NASA experiment named Seeds-2. This experiment will expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight, gathering data vital for future crewed missions.

The spaceplane’s previous mission, launched atop a ULA Atlas V rocket in May 2020, saw the spaceplane spend a record 908 days in orbit before landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in November 2022. This mission included a service module that expanded the spacecraft’s capabilities, and hosting more experiments than any previous missions. Among these were the Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module experiment and two NASA experiments studying the effects of space conditions on various materials.

This upcoming mission marks SpaceX’s 92nd for the year 2023, inching closer to CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious target of 100 launches within the year. With several weeks remaining, the company appears to be on track to potentially reach this significant milestone.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.

Space Station Astronauts Find Desiccated Tomato After Blaming Colleague for Its Theft

Victor Tangermann
Thu, December 7, 2023 


Grand Theft Tomato

A scandal on board the International Space Station has finally been put to bed.

For months now, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has been accused by his fellow crew members — in jest, they say, mostly at least —of eating a tiny tomato that was laboriously grown on board the space station.

But as it turns out, Rubio was innocent.

"Our good friend Frank Rubio, who headed home [already], has been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato," NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli said during a live stream celebrating the station's 25th anniversary.

"But we can exonerate him," she added in the footage, spotted by Space.com. "We found the tomato."
Crime and Punishment

Rubio flew to the space station on board a Soyuz spacecraft in September 2022 and made his return just over a year later due to delays caused by the same capsule starting to uncontrollably leak coolant. The unusual incident forced Russia's space program to send a replacement spacecraft, which ended up taking several months.

While he was on board the station, Rubio tended to an experiment dubbed Veg-05, which involved growing tiny Red Robin dwarf tomatoes.

In late March, astronauts were each given a share of the harvest tucked inside Ziploc bags. Rubio says his share, however, floated away before he could eat the fruits of his labor.

"I spent so many hours looking for that thing," Rubio said during a September livestream. "I'm sure the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate me, years in the future."

In October, two weeks after returning to the ground, Rubio told reporters that he spent "18 to 20 hours of my own time looking for" the errant tomato, as quoted by Space.com.

"The reality of the problem, you know — the humidity up there is like 17 percent," he added. "It's probably desiccated to the point where you couldn't tell what it was, and somebody just threw away the bag."

Given Moghbeli's latest comments, he likely was spot on in his predictions.

More on the ISS: Space Station Turns 25, Just in Time to Die


'Dark force' theory could solve 2 open cosmic mysteries
Robert Lea
Fri, December 8, 2023

An illustration of a bright galaxy surrounded by a blueish halo. 

A new theory that suggests dark matter is made up of particles that strongly interact with each other via a so-called "dark force." If true, this may finally explain the extreme densities we see in dark matter haloes surrounding galaxies.

The existence of particles called self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) acts as an alternative to cold dark matter theories which suggest the elusive stuff is made up of massive, slow-moving (and thus cold), weakly interacting particles that don’t collide. The problem with those cold dark matter models is that they struggle to explain two puzzles surrounding what are known as dark matter haloes.

"The first is a high-density dark matter halo in a massive elliptical galaxy. The halo was detected through observations of strong gravitational lensing, and its density is so high that it is extremely unlikely in the prevailing cold dark matter theory," Hai-Bo Yu, team leader and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, said in a statement.

"The second," he continued, "is that dark matter halos of ultra-diffuse galaxies have extremely low densities, and they are difficult to explain by the cold dark matter theory."

Related: Dark matter may be hiding in the Large Hadron Collider’s particle jets
The haloes

Dark matter presents a major conundrum for scientists because, despite making up around 85% of the matter in the cosmos, it does not interact with light and therefore remains virtually invisible to us. This tells researchers that dark matter can't just be unseen conglomerations of matter made up of electrons, protons and neutrons — so-called baryonic matter that comprises stars, planets, our bodies and pretty much everything we see around us on a day-to-day basis. No, dark matter has to be made of something else.

The only way that researchers can infer the existence of dark matter at all, in fact, is because it has mass and thus interacts with gravity. This effect can be "felt" by baryonic matter we can indeed see and by light, which astronomers are definitely able to observe.

More specifically, when light travels past these dark matter-wrapped galaxies from background sources, the substance's influence on the fabric of space diverts the light's path and, in turn, makes the background sources appear "shifted" to new locations in space.

This effect, dubbed gravitational lensing, is what originally allowed scientists to determine that most, if not all, galaxies are surrounded by haloes of dark matter in the first place. And these haloes are believed to extend far beyond the limits of those galaxies' visible matter objects like stars, gas and dust. Gravitational lensing has also allowed astronomers to measure the density of dark matter haloes. Denser haloes are responsible for stronger lensing than less dense haloes around ultra-diffuse galaxies — low-brightness galaxies with scattered gas and stars. However, researchers have struggled to explain the extremes of dark matter halo densities.
Enter, artificial intelligence

To tackle this puzzle, Yu and colleagues, including the University of Southern California postdoctoral researchers Ethan Nadler and Daneng Yang, constructed high-resolution simulations of cosmic structures that are based on actual astronomical observations.

They factored into these simulations strong dark matter self-interactions on mass scales relating to strong lensing haloes and ultra-diffuse galaxies.

"These self-interactions lead to heat transfer in the halo, which diversifies the halo density in the central regions of galaxies," Nadler explained. "In other words, some halos have higher central densities, and others have lower central densities, compared to their cold dark matter counterparts, with details depending on the cosmic evolution history and environment of individual halos."

The team concluded that SIDM interacting through a "dark force," just as baryonic particles interact through the force of electromagnetism and via the strong and weak nuclear forces, could offer a solution that cold dark matter theories don’t deliver.

"Cold dark matter is challenged to explain these puzzles. SIDM is arguably the compelling candidate to reconcile the two opposite extremes," Yang added. "Now there is an intriguing possibility that dark matter may be more complex and vibrant than we expected."

Related Stories:

— We still don't know what dark matter is, but here's what it's not

— Astronomers weigh ancient galaxies' dark matter haloes for 1st time

— Could a 'supervoid' solve an unrelenting debate over the universe's expansion rate?

The team thinks their research also provides an example of the analytical power of uniting real observations of the universe, which grow in detail with each new generation of telescope, with the burgeoning power of artificial intelligence.

"We hope our work encourages more studies in this promising research area," Yu said. "It will be a particularly timely development given the expected influx of data in the near future from astronomical observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope and upcoming Rubin Observatory."

The team’s research was published in November in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Humans have created a new geological era on the Moon, scientists say
Sarah Knapton
Fri, December 8, 2023

Signs of mankind's presence are not hard to find on the Moon - Sovfoto/Getty Images

Humans have caused so much disturbance to the Moon that it has entered a new epoch, scientists have claimed.

More than a hundred spacecraft have landed on the Moon’s surface since the USSR set down Luna 2 in 1959, leading experts to claim the satellite is now in the “lunar anthropocene” age.

Earth is thought to have tipped from the Holocene to the Anthropocene around the time the first nuclear weapons were detonated, leaving a lasting mark on the planet’s geology.

The Moon has been in the Copernican period for around the past billion years, which began when volcanic lava flows stopped.
‘We want to prevent massive damage’

But in a new paper in Nature Geoscience, anthropologists and geologists at the University of Kansas, argue Moon missions have tipped the satellite into a new era of human interference.

The scientists claim that the Lunar Anthropocene began when Luna 2 landed in 1959.

“The idea is much the same as the discussion of the Anthropocene on Earth – the exploration of how much humans have impacted our planet,” said lead author Justin Holcomb, a postdoctoral researcher with the Kansas Geological Survey.

“The consensus is on Earth the Anthropocene began at some point in the past, whether hundreds of thousands of years ago or in the 1950s.

“Similarly, on the moon, we argue the Lunar Anthropocene already has commenced, but we want to prevent massive damage or a delay of its recognition until we can measure a significant lunar halo caused by human activities, which would be too late.”
Two golf balls on the Moon

It is estimated that humans have left 500,000lbs of human artefacts on the lunar surface, including six American flags, television equipment, and an aluminium sculpture called Fallen Astronaut.

There are even two golf balls from when Alan Shepard attempted putting in low gravity, while Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke left a framed photograph of his family.

Nasa’s Artemis mission is due to place humans back on the surface by 2025.

The researchers have also called for a new academic field of ‘space heritage’ which would preserve or catalogue items such as the lunar rovers, flags and footprints on the Moon’s surface.

Twelve men have walked on the Moon and mankind has left signs of its visits - AP/Dr. Scott M. Lieberman

Dr Holcomb added: “As archaeologists, we perceive footprints on the moon as an extension of humanity’s journey out of Africa, a pivotal milestone in our species’ existence. These imprints are intertwined with the overarching narrative of evolution.

“In the context of the new space race, the lunar landscape will be entirely different in 50 years. Multiple countries will be present, leading to numerous challenges. Our goal is to dispel the lunar-static myth and emphasise the importance of our impact, not only in the past but ongoing and in the future.

“We aim to initiate discussions about our impact on the lunar surface before it’s too late.”

Why scientists think it's time to declare a new lunar epoch

Laura Baisas
Fri, December 8, 2023 

Apollo 16 lunar landing mission commander John W. Young leaps from the lunar surface as he salutes the United States flag. The flag is located at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity.

Six decades of human lunar exploration has shaped the moon’s environment. There has been enough change that some scientists argue that a new geological epoch on the moon should be declared. In a commentary published December 8 in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of anthropologists and geologists say it should be called the Lunar Anthropocene and “space heritage” should be preserved and cataloged.

[Related: Why do all these countries want to go to the moon right now?]
Why the Lunar Anthropocene?

Scientists used the term Anthropocene to describe the epoch where humans began to have a significant impact on Earth’s ecosystem and geology. The planet is about 4.5 billion years old, and modern humans have only been around for 200,000 years. In that short amount of time, Homo sapiens have significantly altered Earth’s biological, chemical, and physical systems.

The beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch is still being debated and has a large range. Some suggest it began thousands of years ago. Others pinpoint 1950, when plutonium isotopes from nuclear weapons tests were found at the bottom of a relatively pristine lake in Canada. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses accelerating global warming, ocean acidification, increased species extinction, habitat destruction, and natural resource extraction are additional signs that humans have dramatically modified our planet.

“The idea is much the same as the discussion of the Anthropocene on Earth—the exploration of how much humans have impacted our planet,” study co-author and Kansas University archaeologist Justin Holcomb said in a statement. “Similarly, on the moon, we argue the Lunar Anthropocene already has commenced, but we want to prevent massive damage or a delay of its recognition until we can measure a significant lunar halo caused by human activities, which would be too late."
64 years of moon exploration–and disturbance

On September 13, 1950, the USSR’s uncrewed spacecraft Luna 2 first descended onto the lunar surface. In the decades since, over 100 other spacecraft have touched the moon. NASA’s Apollo Lunar Modules followed in the 1960s and 1970s and China got the first seedling to sprout on the moon in 2019. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully landed on the moon with the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August.

All of this activity has displaced more of the moon’s surface than natural meteroid impacts and other natural processes.

In Nature Geoscience, the team argues that upcoming lunar missions and projects will change the face of the moon in more extreme ways. They believe that the concept of the Lunar Anthropocene may help correct a myth that the moon is barely impacted by human activity and is an unchanging environment.

[Related: Lunar laws could protect the moon from humanity.]

“Cultural processes are starting to outstrip the natural background of geological processes on the moon,” Holcomb said. “These processes involve moving sediments, which we refer to as ‘regolith,’ on the moon. Typically, these processes include meteoroid impacts and mass movement events, among others. However, when we consider the impact of rovers, landers and human movement, they significantly disturb the regolith.”

They believe that the lunar landscape will look entirely different in only half a century, with multiple countries having some presence on the surface of the moon.

University College London astrophysicist Ingo Waldmann told New Scientist that the moon has entered its version of the Anthropocene. He said that lunar geology isn’t very dramatic. The moon might see an asteroid impact every couple of million years, but there aren’t too many other big events. “Just us walking on it has a bigger environmental impact than anything that would happen to the moon in hundreds of thousands of years,” said Waldmann.

The moon is currently in a geological division called the Copernican Period. It dates over one billion years ago. In that time, Earth has gone through roughly 15 geological periods.
Leave only footprints

The unofficial motto of the United States National Park Service here on Earth is “take only photographs, leave only footprints.” The authors of this commentary believe that a similar mindset should apply to the moon. Debris from human missions to the moon includes everything from spacecraft components, excrement, golf balls, flags, and more.

“We know that while the Moon does not have an atmosphere or magnetosphere, it does have a delicate exosphere composed of dust and gas, as well as ice inside permanently shadowed areas, and both are susceptible to exhaust gas propagation,” the authors wrote. “Future missions must consider mitigating deleterious effects on lunar environments.”

The team hopes that calling a similar attention to the environmental impact of the moon will protect their historical and anthropological value. There are currently no laws or policy protections against disturbing the moon. The team hopes that this concept of a Lunar Anthropocene will spark conversations about human impacts on the moon and how historical artifacts are preserved.

REVENGE PORN 
Apps That Use AI to Undress Women in Photos Soaring in Use


Margi Murphy
Fri, December 8, 2023 



(Blooberg) -- Apps and websites that use artificial intelligence to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, according to researchers.

In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing websites, the social network analysis company Graphika found.

Many of these undressing, or “nudify,” services use popular social networks for marketing, according to Graphika. For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400% on social media, including on X and Reddit, the researchers said. The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude. Many of the services only work on women.

Read More: No Laws Protect People From Deepfake Porn. These Victims Fought Back

These apps are part of a worrying trend of non-consensual pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence — a type of fabricated media known as deepfake pornography. Its proliferation runs into serious legal and ethical hurdles, as the images are often taken from social media and distributed without the consent, control or knowledge of the subject.

The rise in popularity corresponds to the release of several open source diffusion models, or artificial intelligence that can create images that are far superior to those created just a few years ago, Graphika said. Because they are open source, the models that the app developers use are available for free.

“You can create something that actually looks realistic,” said Santiago Lakatos, an analyst at Graphika, noting that previous deepfakes were often blurry.

One image posted to X advertising an undressing app used language that suggests customers could create nude images and then send them to the person whose image was digitally undressed, inciting harassment. One of the apps, meanwhile, has paid for sponsored content on Google’s YouTube, and appears first when searching with the word “nudify.”

A Google spokesperson said the company doesn’t allow ads “that contain sexually explicit content.”

“We’ve reviewed the ads in question and are removing those that violate our policies,” the company said.

A Reddit spokesperson said the site prohibits any non-consensual sharing of faked sexually explicit material and had banned several domains as a result of the research. X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In addition to the rise in traffic, the services, some of which charge $9.99 a month, claim on their websites that they are attracting a lot of customers. “They are doing a lot of business,” Lakatos said. Describing one of the undressing apps, he said, “If you take them at their word, their website advertises that it has more than a thousand users per day.”

Non-consensual pornography of public figures has long been a scourge of the internet, but privacy experts are growing concerned that advances in AI technology have made deepfake software easier and more effective.

“We are seeing more and more of this being done by ordinary people with ordinary targets,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “You see it among high school children and people who are in college.”

Many victims never find out about the images, but even those who do may struggle to get law enforcement to investigate or to find funds to pursue legal action, Galperin said.

There is currently no federal law banning the creation of deepfake pornography, though the US government does outlaw generation of these kinds of images of minors. In November, a North Carolina child psychiatrist was sentenced to 40 years in prison for using undressing apps on photos of his patients, the first prosecution of its kind under law banning deepfake generation of child sexual abuse material.

TikTok has blocked the keyword “undress,” a popular search term associated with the services, warning anyone searching for the word that it “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines,” according to the app. A TikTok representative declined to elaborate. In response to questions, Meta Platforms Inc. also began blocking key words associated with searching for undressing apps. A spokesperson declined to comment.

(Updates with Reddit comment in 10th paragraph. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the apps were free.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Canada’s fossil fuel firms will need to cut emissions by at least 35% by 2030

Aliya Uteuova and agencies
Thu, December 7, 2023 

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images


Canada will require its fossil fuel industry to cut its emissions between 35% to 38% below 2019 levels starting in 2030, it was announced on Thursday.

Related: ‘Unprecedented mass coral bleaching’ expected in 2024, says expert

The prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to limit emissions from the oil and gas sector through a national cap-and-trade system which he first proposed in his 2021 election campaign, according to the policy announcement.

“Every sector of Canada’s economy must do its part to combat climate change and build a safe, prosperous, and healthy future for Canadians,” said Canada’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, in a statement made from the Cop28 UN climate conference in Dubai. He added: “All sectors of our economy need to reduce their emissions and that includes oil and gas companies.”

The policy, part of Canada’s plan to reach net-zero by 2050, works by setting a limit on emissions, and having companies that do not meet that benchmark buy and trade emission allowances with other producers.

The newly introduced framework states that facilities would be able to buy a limited amount of carbon offset credits – which have faced questions over their effectiveness in cutting planet-heating emissions – or contribute to a decarbonization fund.

The cap would cover all greenhouse gas emissions and apply to oil and gas companies, offshore facilities and liquefied natural gas producers. Together they represent roughly 85% of the sector’s emissions, according to the policy release.

The proposal was met with opposition from the premier of Canada’s main fossil-fuel producing province Alberta.

“We have been very firm in saying that we oppose any kind of arbitrary emissions cap, whether it’s on oil and gas emissions or whether it’s on methane,” Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, said on Thursday. Smith relayed her intentions to challenge the policy and produce a “constitutional shield” against the proposal.

“This proposed cap also undermines the unity of our country,” Smith said in a statement.

In response to the Canada’s announcement of the capping framework, Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada said: “This isn’t yet the ambitious emissions cap we need to set us on a path to the full, fast and fair phase-out of fossil fuels necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

The government promises to publish draft regulations in mid-2024 with input from the industry.

Reuters contributed to this story

Canada Orders Emissions Cuts Up to 38% for Oil and Gas Firms

Laura Dhillon Kane and Kevin Orland
Thu, December 7, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Canada will require its oil and gas industry to cut emissions to 35% to 38% below 2019 levels in six years in what the government is calling a historic first for a major fossil-fuel producing country.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced the long-promised oil and gas emissions cap Thursday at the COP28 summit in Dubai, a policy likely to inflame tensions with conservative leaders of western provinces that are home to the bulk of the industry.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will implement a cap-and-trade system to achieve the cuts. It will set a legal limit on the sector’s emissions and then allow companies to buy and trade a limited number of emissions allowances or permits. Companies that reduce emissions will be able to sell more permits, thereby rewarding those who innovate to cut pollution.

“There is no future for this industry unless they decarbonize,” Guilbeault said in an interview.

Producers will be allowed the flexibility to emit up to a level of about 20% to 23% below 2019 levels through the ability to buy carbon offsets or pay into a fund that promotes decarbonization in the sector if their emissions exceed the cap.

The cap will go down over time until Canada’s economy reaches net zero in 2050. Thursday’s announcement is a framework that lays out the plan, with more details to be released in draft regulations in the middle of next year, Guilbeault said. Those regulations will narrow down an exact emissions target for 2030, he said.

Industry Reaction

The Canadian Association of Energy Contractors said it rejects the cap, arguing it will hurt Canadian energy workers and the small and medium-sized businesses supporting them.

“The world will continue its decarbonization journey, but will demand more pragmatic and affordable policies,” the association’s head, Mark Scholz, said Thursday in a statement. “The federal government’s emissions cap will hinder Canada’s ability to attract capital. It means higher energy costs and fewer jobs for Canadian energy workers.”

The Explorers and Producers Association of Canada said imposing an emissions cap on oil and gas producers, who are already achieving significant emissions reductions, is unnecessary and unacceptable.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is already pushing back, saying the “de facto production cap on Alberta’s oil and gas sector amounts to an intentional attack by the federal government on the economy of Alberta.” Smith has already invoked an act that she says allows the province to override federal legislation to defy its clean-electricity regulations.

The oil and gas sector is the largest single source of emissions for Canada, accounting for 28% of that pollution in 2021, according to Canada’s government. Emissions from the sector were 201 million metric tons in 2019, 20% higher than 2005.

The cap-and-trade system will cover all direct greenhouse gas emissions, while also accounting for indirect emissions related to the production of oil and gas and carbon storage. The cap will regulate upstream oil and gas facilities, including offshore operations, and will also apply to liquefied natural gas plants.

The environment minister said the regulations will ensure that oil and gas companies making record profits invest them in Canadian jobs, communities and the economy. There was no new government funding announced Thursday to help industry meet the targets, though Canada previously promised C$12.4 billion ($9.1 billion) in tax credits for building carbon capture systems.

Guilbeault said he had been speaking with other major fossil fuel-producing countries at COP28 and none had capped emissions from their sector. “It’s never been done before.


©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

COP28: US-UAE climate-friendly farming effort grows to $17 billion

Updated Fri, December 8, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: In an Argentine field, green shoots mask scars of drought


By Leah Douglas, Simon Jessop and Mohammed Benmansour

DUBAI (Reuters) -Funding for a joint effort by the United States and United Arab Emirates to advance climate-friendly farming around the world has grown to more than $17 billion, the countries announced on Friday at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) was launched in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow and its funding comes from governments, companies, and non-governmental organizations.

Globally, food and farming contribute about a third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Nearly 80 projects have been announced under the AIM for Climate initiative since 2021, with goals to expand agricultural research, implement sustainable farming practices, and reduce methane emissions.

"I think it's made people think about food and agriculture in a much different way," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

"And I think it's reflected, frankly, in the fact that this COP ... has actually elevated food (and) agriculture to the point where it's an integral part of COP meetings. That has not been the case for the previous 27."

Funding for the effort has grown from $13 billion in May, when the U.S. and UAE co-hosted an AIM for Climate summit in Washington, and from $8 billion at COP27.

The new total includes $12 billion from governments and $5 billion from non-government parties such as companies and humanitarian organizations, said an AIM for Climate spokesperson.

The 27 new projects announced at COP28 range in size from $500 million to $150,000.

In one of the largest projects, companies including Bunge and Alphabet's Google are working with the Nature Conservancy and the Brazilian state of Para to expand regenerative agriculture, which generally refers to practices like reduced tillage of cropland and lower pesticide use.

For the first time, agriculture is a major focus at this year's climate summit, with a full day on Dec. 10 dedicated to food and farming topics.

"We understand that we need to speed up innovations ... to be able to transform agriculture food systems to more sustainable systems," UAE Minister for Climate and the Environment Mariam Almheiri told Reuters.

Advocacy groups want the nations and companies in attendance to pledge to tackle agricultural methane emissions in particular, most of which is from livestock production.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; editing by David Evans)

Latest COP28 draft text sets new options on fossil fuel phase out

William James and Elizabeth Piper
Fri, December 8, 2023 

Climate activists protest against fossil fuels at Dubai's Expo City during the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai


By William James and Elizabeth Piper

DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.N. climate agency published a new draft of its COP28 agreement on Friday which included a range of options for the future of fossil fuel use, the most contentious issue at the summit.

Over the next few days countries are expected to focus on the issue in hopes of reaching a consensus before the summit's scheduled end on Dec. 12.

The options included in the text, which is still under negotiation, were for the final deal to call upon countries to "take further action in this critical decade towards":

- "A phase out of fossil fuels in line with best available science"

- "Phasing out of fossil fuels in line with best available science, the IPCC's 1.5 pathways and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement"

- "A phase-out of unabated fossil fuels recognizing the need for a peak in their consumption in this decade and underlining the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050"

- "Phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net-zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century"

- No language on the future use of fossil fuels.

The document also set out an option for a "rapid phase out of unabated coal power this decade and an immediate cessation of the permitting of new unabated coal power generation". The other option for this paragraph was to include no text on the issue.

Elsewhere the draft offers an option to call either for "the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transition", or to include no text on the issue.

(Reporting by William James and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Katy Daigle)
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At COP28, pageantry is over and negotiations get intense; 'It's go time' to save planet in peril

SETH BORENSTEIN, DAVID KEYTON and JON GAMBRELL
Updated Fri, December 8, 2023 















DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Teams of veteran negotiators fanned out Friday at the United Nations climate conference with orders to get the strongest, most ambitious agreements possible, especially on the central issue of the fading future of fossil fuels for a dangerously warming planet.

The leadership of climate talks, called COP28, sent out four pairs of veteran and high-level ministers to push countries together on four key but stubborn issues as the summit went into its second week after a day of rest Thursday.

New proposed language on how to curb warming released Friday afternoon strengthened the options for a phase-out of fossil fuels that negotiators could choose from. Four of the five options call for some version of a rapid phase-out.

Major oil-producing nations were always seen as likely to resist that, and late Friday, multiple news organizations reported that OPEC's top official, Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais, had written to member countries urging them to reject any text that targets fossil fuels rather than emissions. OPEC didn't immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, called the letter “shameful.”

“These letters show that fossil fuel interests are starting to realize that the writing is on the wall for dirty energy," Sadow said in a statement. “Their fossil fuels have imperiled the planet, pushed millions of people to the brink of survival and sadly, too many over that line. Climate change is killing poor people around the globe and these petrostates don’t want COP28 to phase out fossil fuels because it will hurt their short-term profits.”

Earlier, Adow had been among environmental advocates who had some qualified optimism about the expanded 27-page draft language.

“The bare bones of a historic agreement is there,” Adow said. "What we now need is for countries to rally behind the stronger of the options and strengthen them further.”

Making a possible final document stronger was also a priority for top United Nations officials.

“It’s go time for governments at COP28 this week,” U.N. Climate Chief Simon Stiell said at a press event. “If we want to save lives now and keep (the international goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of warming since pre-industrial times) within reach, the highest ambition COP outcomes must stay front and center in these negotiations.”

Stiell underlined the challenge ahead if the world doesn’t limit emissions, describing ice shelves melting to cause catastrophic flooding in coastal cities around the globe.

“If we pass these key thresholds, we can never go back from the planet’s perspective,” he said. A report released Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit warned that melting of ice sheets could reach the point of no return with more warming.

COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber said he was “quite positive, hopeful and optimistic” that the summit could bring a “paradigm shift centered around and based on the science.”

Members of the four pairs of high level special teams — who will work with negotiators from nearly 200 countries — said they too thought they'd be able to get the job done.

“I think there is some momentum. Having spoken to all parties' groups of countries for months now there really is this sense of urgency,” Denmark's Environment Minister Dan Jorgensen, told The Associated Press. “We need an agreement, so I am optimistic.”

EU countries, some Latin American countries and the small island countries often victimized by climate change are aligned on calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels, negotiators said.

Two groups of countries are likely to oppose, in some manner, a full and quick phase out of fossil fuels, said World Resources Institute CEO Ani Dasgupta. One is developing nations, like India and Indonesia, that think they need fossil fuels to power up their economies, but with financial and other aid, they can be pulled out of that position, he said.

The other group are fossil fuel producers. The United States is the biggest oil producer in the world and Special Envoy John Kerry earlier this week said the U.S. is committed to supporting strong phase-out language. But a big country looming against it is Saudi Arabia and they are close partners with the United Arab Emirates, the country hosting and running the conference, Dasgupta said.

The UAE has a lot to gain from a successful climate conference and “I think they will bring Saudi Arabia as close as possible,” Dasgupta said. When asked at a press conference about working with Saudi Arabia, al-Jaber, who also leads his country's national oil company, avoided answering that part of the question.

The Arab group is a major blocker so far, a negotiator said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid affecting negotiations.

“I felt from the consultations that very many parties understand that we have to have a real progress on mitigation,” climate talk for emissions cuts, said Norway Foreign Minister Espen Barth-Eide. “That was not as true in Sharm el-Sheikh” in 2022 climate talks.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said: “What we need to be successful here is to achieve the goal of phasing out fossil fuels ... not emissions. It does make quite a substantial difference.”

European negotiators provided some extra hope. The EU goal is to cut emissions by 55% by 2030, but European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said Friday that the European parliament hopes to do better than than and instead slice 57%.

Negotiators said there is a sense of urgency because of floods, droughts, storms and heat waves in a world that keeps setting heat records.

"We cannot negotiate with nature,” Jorgensen said. “The climate cannot compromise.”

As analysts and activists examined the new text they kept looking for more clarity, especially when it comes to fossil fuels and adaptation plans.

The frequent use of phase-out in the draft is good, "but it also has terms that would leave parties in an ambiguous position," said Jamal Srouji of World Resources Institute. He worried that it would not tell people clearly “who needs to do what when."

“We have never been closer to an agreement on a fossil fuel phase-out,” said Oil Change International's Romain Ioualalen.

Asked when talks would start to go around the clock, Danish negotiator Jorgensen looked at his watch and said, “Now.”

___

Associated Press journalist Sibi Arasu and Gaurav Saini from The Press Trust of India contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

UN talks look for deal on winding down fossil fuels

Shaun Tandon and Laurent Thomet
Fri, December 8, 2023 

Negotiations over phasing out fossil fuels are at the heart of the UN climate conference in Dubai (Giuseppe CACACE)


Negotiators strived for a compromise on phasing out fossil fuels at UN climate talks Friday as momentum gathered to strike a historic deal in Dubai.

After the arrival of ministers for the summit's final stretch, a new draft was released with more options on the most difficult part of an emerging deal -- cutting fossil fuels to tame the planet's soaring temperatures.

The third version of the draft, which represents views of various countries, offers five options. One that remains from previous versions calls for not mentioning fossil fuels at all.

Other options include phasing out "unabated" fossil fuels -- those whose emissions cannot be captured -- with a goal of peaking consumption this decade and aiming for the world's energy sector to be "predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050".

A new line calls for ramping up renewable energy to displace fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal -- with a goal of "significantly reducing global reliance on non-renewable and high-emission energy sources".

That language is in line with an agreement between the United States and China, the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases, at talks in California last month.

COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber wants to wrap up the talks on schedule at 11 am (0700 GMT) on Tuesday, which means that all the nearly 200 nations will have to come to a consensus.

"Let us please get this job done," he said.

- 'Never closer' -

Romain Ioualalen, global policy manager of the advocacy group Oil Change International, said that the latest text "shows we have never been closer to an agreement on a fossil fuel phaseout."

But he voiced alarm over "large loopholes" under consideration for the fossil fuel industry.

The most vocal holdout to calls to end fossil fuels is Saudi Arabia, which like summit host United Arab Emirates has grown wealthy on oil.

While China has sided with the camp opposed to a phase-out so far, the country is seen as a constructive partner in the talks, negotiators said.

"We won't reach a deal without China," said a French delegation official.

In a sign that oil-rich countries are growing worried, OPEC chief Haitham Al Ghais sent a letter to members of the cartel and their allies on Wednesday, urging them to "proactively reject" any COP28 deal that "targets" fossil fuels instead of emissions.

"It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences," Ghais wrote in the letter seen by AFP.

Climate campaigners have viewed Jaber with deep suspicion as he is head of the UAE national oil firm ADNOC.

But he has sought to reassure doubters by stating that a phase-down of fossil fuels is "inevitable".

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union's climate commissioner, acknowledged that the fossil fuel question was the most difficult at COP28.

He voiced doubt about technologies promoted by energy producers -- including the US -- to rely on new technologies when extracting fossil fuels, so-called carbon capture and storage or CCS.

It is "crystal clear that CCS is part of the solution. But make no mistake -- we cannot CCS ourselves out of this problem," Hoekstra said.

The level of technology "simply doesn't exist. We need to drive down emissions."

- 'Credibility' on line -

Scientists warn that greenhouse gas emissions -- the bulk of which come from burning fossil fuels -- must fall by 43 percent by 2030 for the world to reach the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"I think many countries at the end might be able to agree to phase-out if the word unabated is included because unabated will weaken the phase-out and make it more of a phase-down," John Verdieck, director of international climate policy at The Nature Conservancy, told AFP.

This would still "create a good signal because the word phase-out could be in there", said Verdieck, a former climate negotiator at the US State Department.

Ugandan climate justice activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Vanessa Nakate said there were a record 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists at the talks and the whole process was at stake.

"If after all of this, leaders still don't have the courage to agree upon a fossil fuel phase out, then it will put in question the credibility not only of COP28 but of the entire COP process," she said.

lth-sct/pvh

OPEC Oil Cartel Tells Members to Reject Efforts to Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Charisma Madarang

ROLLING STONE
Fri, December 8, 2023 


As delegates at the 2023 COP28 UN climate change summit work to identify global climate actions by the Dec. 12 deadline, the head of the OPEC oil cartel urged the group’s members to block any deal aimed at phasing out fossil fuels.

In a letter dated Dec. 6, first reported by Reuters, Haitham Al-Ghais, secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, insisted producers “proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions.”

“It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences, as the draft decision still contains options on fossil fuels phase out,” Al-Ghais wrote. “It would be unacceptable that politically motivated campaigns put our people’s prosperity and future at risk,” he added. According to the New York Times, the letter was sent to top ministers in all 13 OPEC countries, and 10 nations in an expanded organization known as OPEC Plus, which includes Russia.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Al-Ghais said that OPEC “will continue to advocate for is reducing emissions, not choosing energy sources,” adding, “The world requires major investments in all energies, including hydrocarbons, all technologies, and an understanding of the energy needs of all peoples. Energy transitions must be just, fair and inclusive.”

Earlier this week, The Guardian reported that the host of COP28 had cast doubt on whether eliminating fossil fuels would help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, saying there is “no science” behind it.

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” Sultan Al-Jaber, CEO of United Arab Emirates state oil company ADNOC, said in November during an online SHE Changes Climate event.

Environmental activists expressed concern in January when Al-Jaber was announced to lead the 2023 COP, noting that his position as an oil executive constitutes a conflict of interest. “Like last year’s summit, we’re increasingly seeing fossil fuel interests taking control of the process and shaping it to meet their own needs,” Teresa Anderson, global lead of climate justice at ActionAid, said in a statement at the time.

Scientists at the summit released a new report warning that without “a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out,” the 1.5C threshold is unobtainable, and surpassing it is almost inevitable.

Despite the mounting calls for countries to come together to mitigate Earth’s climate crisis, the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently attempted to claim clean energy is bad for the environment, and called for nations to take action against wind and solar power.

More from Rolling Stone

Oil-Rich Saudi Arabia Tries to Claim Clean Energy Is Bad for the Environment


COP28 Climate Host: There's 'No Science' Behind Calls to Eliminate Fossil Fuels

OPEC push on fossil fuels draws ire at climate talks
Laurent THOMET
Sat, December 9, 2023 

Climate negotiators are scrambling to reach a compromise over the future of fossil fuels (Giuseppe CACACE)

Negotiations over the future of fossil fuels heated up at UN climate talks on Saturday, with OPEC catching flak over the oil cartel's push to block any phase-out in the final deal.

The tone has veered between optimism and concern about the pace of talks as negotiators have held marathon sessions aimed at finding a compromise on the fate of oil, gas and coal.

OPEC added fuel to the fire after it emerged that its Kuwaiti secretary general, Haitham Al Ghais, sent a letter to the group's 13 members and 10 allies this week urging them to "proactively reject" any language that "targets" fossil fuels instead of emissions.


"I think that it is quite, quite a disgusting thing that OPEC countries are pushing against getting the bar where it has to be," Spanish ecology transition minister Teresa Ribera, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters.

Dramatically scaling up the deployment of renewable energy while winding down the production and consumption of fossil fuels is crucial to achieve the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The High Ambition Coalition, a broad group of nations ranging from Barbados to France, Kenya and Pacific island states, also criticised the OPEC move.

"Nothing puts the prosperity and future of all people on Earth, including all of the citizens of OPEC countries, at greater risk than fossil fuels," said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, which chairs the coalition.

"1.5 is not negotiable, and that means an end to fossil fuels," Stege added.

- Iraq supports OPEC -

A third draft deal released Friday offers various ways to phase out of fossil fuels, but it also includes the option to not mention them at all in the final text.

Saudi Arabia had until now been the most vocal country against a phase-out or phase-down of fossil fuels.

In the OPEC letter sent Wednesday, Ghais said it "seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences".

Assem Jihad, spokesman for Iraq's oil ministry, told AFP his country supports the OPEC letter.

Iraqi oil minister Hayan Abdel Ghani "has rejected attempts to target fossil fuels", Jihad said.

He added that Ghani has tasked Iraq's COP28 delegation to "ensure that the wording of the final statement puts the emphasis on world cooperation on a reduction of emissions in order to preserve the environment and climate".

But another OPEC member, COP28 host the United Arab Emirates, has taken a conciliatory tone throughout the negotiations and acknowledged that a phase-down was "inevitable".

- 'Critical stage' -

Canadian climate minister Steven Guilbeault told AFP he was "confident" that the final text would contain language on fossil fuels.

Guilbeault is among a group of ministers who have been tasked by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber to shepherd the negotiations and find an agreement by Tuesday, when the summit is due to end.

"It's a conversation that will last a few more days," Guilbeault said.

"Different groups are talking and trying to understand on what we could agree, but it's still quite an embryonic conversation," he added.

German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said countries were "now moving into the critical stage of negotiations" but she was "concerned that not all are constructively engaging".

Fresh calls for a phase-out were made by ministers addressing a plenary session on Saturday.

"We are extremely concerned about the pace of the negotiations, given the limited time we have left here in Dubai," said Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

AOSIS has pushed hard for a phase-out, warning that their nations were on the frontlines of climate change, with rising seas threatening their existence.

"I implore you, let this COP28 be the summit where we leaders are remembered for turning the tide," Schuster said, adding that stepping up renewable energy "cannot be a substitute for a stronger commitment to fossil fuel phase-out."

What is carbon capture and why does it keep coming up at COP28?

MICHAEL PHILLIS
Fri, December 8, 2023 


Activists participate in a demonstration calling for climate solutions at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 

(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

The future of fossil fuels is at the center of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where many activists, experts and nations are calling for an agreement to phase out the oil, gas and coal responsible for warming the planet. On the other side: energy companies and oil-rich nations with plans to keep drilling well into the future.

In the background of those discussions are carbon capture and carbon removal, technologies most, if not all, producers are counting on to meet their pledges to get to net-zero emissions. Skeptics worry the technology is being oversold to allow the industry to maintain the status quo.

“The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,” International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said before the start of talks.


WHAT EXACTLY IS CARBON CAPTURE?

Lots of industrial facilities like coal-fired power plants and ethanol plants produce carbon dioxide. To stop those planet-warming emissions from reaching the atmosphere, businesses can install equipment to separate that gas from all the other gases coming out of the smokestack, and transport it to where it can be permanently stored underground. And even for industries trying to reduce emissions, some are likely to always produce some carbon, like cement manufacturers that use a chemical process that releases CO2.

“We call that a mitigation technology, a way to stop the increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Karl Hausker, an expert on getting to net-zero emissions at World Resources Institute, a climate-focused nonprofit that supports sharp fossil fuel reductions along with a limited role for carbon capture.

The captured carbon is concentrated into a form that can be transported in a vehicle or through a pipeline to a place where it can be injected underground for long-term storage.

Then there's carbon removal. Instead of capturing carbon from a single, concentrated source, the objective is to remove carbon that's already in the atmosphere. This already happens when forests are restored, for example, but there's a push to deploy technology, too. One type directly captures it from the air, using chemicals to pull out carbon dioxide as air passes through.

For some, carbon removal is essential during a global transition to clean energy that will take years. For example, despite notable gains for electric vehicles in some countries, gas-fired cars will be operating well into the future. And some industries, like shipping and aviation, are challenging to fully decarbonize.

“We have to remove some of what’s in the atmosphere in addition to stopping the emissions,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, who leads the federally supported Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s carbon initiative in the U.S., the world's second-leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

HOW IS IT GOING?

Many experts say the technology to capture carbon and store it works, but it’s expensive, and it’s still in the early days of deployment.

There are about 40 large-scale carbon capture projects in operation around the world capturing roughly 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s a tiny amount — roughly 0.1% — of the 36.8 billion metric tons emitted globally as tallied by the Global Carbon Project.

The IEA says the history of carbon capture “has largely been one of unmet expectations.” The group analyzed how the world can achieve net zero emissions and its guide path relies heavily on lowering emissions by slashing fossil fuel use. Carbon capture is just a sliver of the solution — less than 10% — but despite its comparatively small role, its expansion is still behind schedule.

The pace of new projects is picking up, but they face significant obstacles. In the United States, there’s opposition to CO2 pipelines that move carbon to storage sites. Safety is one concern; in 2020, a CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured, releasing carbon dioxide that displaced breathable air near the ground and sent dozens of people to hospitals. The federal government is working on improving safety standards.

Companies can also run into difficulty getting permits. South Dakota regulators this year, for example, rejected a construction permit for a 1,300-mile network of CO2 pipelines in the Midwest to move carbon to a storage site in Illinois.

The technology to remove carbon directly from the air exists too, but its broad deployment is even further away and especially costly.

WHO’S SUPPORTING CARBON CAPTURE?

The American Petroleum Institute says oil and gas will remain a critical energy source for decades, meaning that in order for the world to reduce its carbon emissions, rapidly expanding carbon capture technology is “key to cleaner energy use across the economy.” A check of most oil companies' plans to get to net-zero emissions also finds most of them relying on carbon capture in some way.

The Biden administration wants more investment in carbon capture and removal, too, building off America's comparatively large spending compared with the rest of the world. But it’s an industry that needs subsidies to attract private financing. The Inflation Reduction Act makes tax benefits much more generous. Investors can get a $180 per ton credit for removing carbon from the air and storing it underground, for example. And the Department of Energy has billions to support new projects.

“What we are talking about now is taking a technology that has been proven and has been tested, but applying it much more broadly and also applying it in sectors where there is a higher cost to deploy,” said Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, an industry advocacy group.

Investment is picking up. The EPA is considering dozens of applications for wells that can store carbon. And in places like Louisiana and North Dakota, local leaders are fighting to attract projects and investment.

Even left-leaning California has an ambitious climate plan that incorporates carbon capture and removing carbon directly out of the air. Leaders say there’s no other way to get emissions to zero.

WHO’S AGAINST IT?

Some environmentalists argue that fossil fuel companies are holding up carbon capture to distract from the need to quickly phase out oil, gas and coal.

“The fossil fuel industry has proven itself to be dangerous and deceptive,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at Center for Biological Diversity.

There are other problems. Some projects haven’t met their carbon removal targets. A 2021 U.S. government accountability report said that of eight demonstration projects aimed at capturing and storing carbon from coal plants, just one had started operating at the time the report was published despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Opponents also note that carbon capture can serve to prolong the life of a polluting plant that would otherwise shut down sooner. That can especially hurt poorer, minority communities that have long lived near heavily polluting facilities.

They also note that most of the carbon captured in the U.S. now eventually gets injected into the ground to force out more oil, a process called enhanced oil recovery.

Hausker said it's essential that governments set policies that force less fossil fuel use — which can then be complemented by carbon capture and carbon removal.

“We aren’t going to ask Exxon, ‘pretty please, stop developing fossil fuels,’” he said.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Carbon capture a 'dangerous excuse' for burning more fossil fuels

Amanda Morrow
Thu, December 7, 2023 

© AFP - KARIM SAHIB


Week one of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai heard much about the grand potential of carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) as dozens of countries push for a broad pact to phase out fossil fuels. While top producers use carbon sequestering as an excuse to keep on burning coal, oil and gas – given they’re now “abated” – critics warn CCS is a fantasy solution that undermines the chances of any viable deal.

Forging the first ever global agreement to phase out fossil fuels is a crux issue at this year’s summit, where host the UAE is a major oil producer. A draft deal on Tuesday proposed "an orderly and just phase-out".

Burning fossil fuels for energy accounts for some 70 percent of emissions and is by far the biggest cause of rising temperatures. But it’s only now – after three decades of UN climate negotiations – that the issue is being tackled head on.

Opposition from countries led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and China, however, could scupper chances of a full phase-out. Meanwhile technology is being put forward as the way oil and gas producers can slash emissions while continuing to operate.

Cop28 president insists he 'respects climate science' amid fossil fuel polemic
Failing ambitions

Cop28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also in charge of UAE oil giant Adnoc, has been heavily promoting CCS as a climate solution.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

The last time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently matched today's human-driven levels was 14 million years ago

Issam AHMED
Thu, December 7, 2023 

Environmental activists display placards during a demonstration at the venue of the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai (Giuseppe CACACE)

The last time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently matched today's human-driven levels was 14 million years ago, according to a large new study Thursday that paints a grim picture of where Earth's climate is headed.

Published in the journal Science, the paper covers the period from 66 million years ago until the present, analyzing biological and geochemical signatures from the deep past to reconstruct the historic CO2 record with greater precision than ever before.

"It really brings it home to us that what we are doing is very, very unusual in Earth's history," lead author Baerbel Hoenisch of the Columbia Climate School's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory told AFP.

Among other things, the new analysis finds the last time the air contained 420 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide was between 14-16 million years ago, when there was no ice in Greenland and the ancestors of humans were just transitioning from forests to grasslands.

That is far further back in time than the 3-5 million years that prior analyses have indicated.

Until the late 1700s, atmospheric carbon dioxide was about 280 ppm, meaning humans have already caused an increase of about 50 percent of the greenhouse gas, which traps heat in the atmosphere and has warmed the planet by 1.2 degrees Celsius compared to before industrialization.

"What's important is that Homo, our species, has only evolved 3 million years ago," said Hoenisch.

"And so our civilization is tuned to sea level as it is today, to having warm tropics and cool poles and temperate regions that have a lot of rainfall."

If global CO2 emissions continue to rise we could reach between 600 - 800 ppm by the year 2100.

Those levels were last seen during the Eocene, 30-40 million years ago, before Antarctica was covered in ice and when the world's flora and fauna looked vastly different -- for example huge insects still roamed the Earth.

- Ancient plants -

The new study is the product of seven years of work by a consortium of 80 researchers across 16 countries and is now considered the updated consensus of the scientific community.

The team didn't collect new data -- rather, they synthesized, re-evaluated and validated published work based on updated science and categorized them according to confidence level, then combined the highest-rated into a new timeline.

Many people are familiar with the concept of drilling into ice sheets or glaciers to extract ice cores whose air bubbles reveal past atmospheric composition -- but these only go back so far, generally hundreds of thousands of years.

To look further into the past, paleoclimatologists use "proxies": by studying the chemical composition of ancient leaves, minerals and plankton, they can indirectly derive atmospheric carbon at a given point in time.

The researchers confirmed that the hottest period over the past 66 million years happened 50 million years ago, when CO2 spiked to as much as 1,600 ppm and temperatures were 12C hotter, before a long decline set in.

By 2.5 million years ago, carbon dioxide was 270-280 ppm, ushering in a series of ice ages.

That remained the level when modern humans arrived 400,000 years ago and persisted until our species began burning fossil fuels at large scales.

The team estimates that a doubling of CO2 is predicted to warm the planet by 5-8 degrees Celsius -- but over a long period, hundreds of thousands of years -- when increased temperatures have rippling effects through Earth systems.

For example, melting the polar ice caps would reduce the planet's ability to reflect solar radiation and become a reinforcing feedback loop.

But the new work remains directly relevant to policy makers, stressed Hoenisch.

The carbon record reveals that 56 million years ago, Earth underwent a similar rapid release of carbon dioxide, which caused massive changes to ecosystems and took some 150,000 years to dissipate.

"We are in this for a very long time, unless we sequester carbon dioxide, take it out of the atmosphere, and we stop our emissions sometime soon," she said.

ia/bgs