UPDATES
COP28 climate deal 'stab in the back', activist Greta Thunberg saysReuters
Fri, December 15, 2023
The March for Climate and Justice, in Amsterdam
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The COP 28 climate deal reached with huge fanfare this week in Dubai is a stab in the back for the nations most affected by global warming and won't stop temperatures rising beyond critical levels, activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday.
Nearly 200 countries agreed at the summit to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuel and adopt a raft of measures, including more clean energy production, to avert the worst effects of climate change.
But critics say the deal will not prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, which scientists say will trigger catastrophic and irreversible impacts, from melting ice sheets to the collapse of ocean currents
"This text is toothless and it is nowhere even close to being sufficient to keep us within the 1.5 degree limit," Thunberg told Reuters outside Sweden's parliament where she and a handful of other protesters were calling for climate justice.
"It is a stab in the back for those most vulnerable."
The Alliance of Small Island States, which includes countries most affected by climate change like Fiji, Tuvalu and Kiribati, said the agreement was full of loopholes and was "incremental and not transformational".
Thunberg, 20, who shot to fame as the face of climate activism in 2018 after she started staging weekly protests in Sweden, said the pact was not designed to solve the climate crisis but as "an alibi" for world leaders that allowed them to ignore global warming.
"As long as we don't treat the climate crisis as a crisis and as long as we keep lobby interests influencing these texts and these processes, we are not going to get anywhere," she said.
(Reporting by Ilze Filks, writing by Simon Johnson, editing by Nick Macfie)
Petrol states are hosting climate summits. Maybe that’s not a bad thing?
Zack Budryk
Sat, December 16, 2023
Azerbaijan will host the 2024 United Nations COP29 climate summit, the second in a row to take place in a major producer of oil, after this year’s event in the United Arab Emirates.
But after the unexpected breakthroughs at this year’s meeting, some are hoping that the conferences can make progress when held in countries built on oil wealth.
Putting COP28 in Dubai prompted widespread skepticism. The UAE is an OPEC member, and its oil and gas production makes up more than a quarter of its gross domestic product.
How much progress on climate change was possible at a summit hosted by a country so dependent on oil production? Such questions were underlined when COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber claimed there was “no science” behind calls for phasing out fossil fuels, sparking outrage among attendees.
Yet the international talks came to a strong conclusion, with a final agreement that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels for the first time in the COP’s history. This followed OPEC pressing nations late in the talks to block such language.
Both the breakthrough and the initial skepticism loom large after Baku was chosen as the site for the 2024 conference.
Azerbaijan is one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the Caucasus region. Its oil industry goes back to the mid-19th century, most of it produced offshore in the Caspian Sea for export, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“Ideally we wouldn’t be hosting COP with another petrochemical state,” said Cherelle Blazer, director of international climate policy at the Sierra Club, who attended the Dubai summit. “I think there’s less known about the dynamics, [but] guarded optimism for sure” ahead of COP29.
Azerbaijan, unlike the UAE, is not an OPEC member but has been invited to join. Brazil, which has been selected as the 2025 host, is an OPEC member that produced about 2.94 million barrels of oil per day in 2020.
“We have to continue to make progress with what we just accomplished at COP28, but I don’t think this is ideal for sure,” Blazer said. “We saw that open interference by OPEC, and I assume they would do the same thing next year. I assume they’ll apply the same pressure next year, even though the host country may not be [a member].”
A major oil producer hosting the summit “doesn’t have to preclude meaningful progress but I think it makes it more difficult,” Blazer added. “This is a conference that’s supposed to be protecting the environment, [but] it is a bit more of the fox guarding the henhouse.”
Ultimately, “a lot of this exercise is performative, marketing and greenwashing,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
“The key bit is to figure out how to have real change on the ground,” Wagner added.
Even COPs hosted by petrostates, he said, could effect meaningful change merely by rethinking their urban design to improve features such as public transportation, “transforming the city itself as a result of this traveling circus.”
“They have a lot of oil wealth — they could, if they wanted to, put in the Beijing metro system times two,” he said.
Wagner expressed hope that between now and COP29, Baku can add features including rapid bus lanes, “so when those 100,000 people show up, maybe do it for that one event and keep going.”
Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, noted that numerous European oil and gas producers have hosted COP summits in the past and that, despite skepticism around the Dubai COP, it was the site of unprecedented progress on fossil fuel language.
The U.S. itself is producing more oil and gas than ever before, and climate advocates have said it must also lead by example if it intends to ask the same of other countries.
“We have to square up what we say we want to do with what we’re actually doing,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday at The Hill’s “Enhancing Energy Efficiency: How Technology is Cutting Carbon Emissions” event. “You can’t teach temperance from a barstool.”
Guilanpour said he did not see evidence that Dubai sought to water things down at the recently concluded summit.
He said it’s possible that the UAE’s position in the Global South and the international oil market gave it credibility among participants, and that this might have led to a stronger final agreement.
“I think it would have been much harder for a Northern country to have had the dynamic and the trust of, for example, regional partners and other fossil fuel producers,” he said. He contrasted it with less forceful language on coal that participants agreed to at the 2021 COP summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“People who were certainly skeptical going into the COP[28] weren’t saying that by the second week,” he added.
COP28: Is it really the beginning of the end for fossil fuels? Here’s what history tells us
Zack Budryk
Sat, December 16, 2023
Azerbaijan will host the 2024 United Nations COP29 climate summit, the second in a row to take place in a major producer of oil, after this year’s event in the United Arab Emirates.
But after the unexpected breakthroughs at this year’s meeting, some are hoping that the conferences can make progress when held in countries built on oil wealth.
Putting COP28 in Dubai prompted widespread skepticism. The UAE is an OPEC member, and its oil and gas production makes up more than a quarter of its gross domestic product.
How much progress on climate change was possible at a summit hosted by a country so dependent on oil production? Such questions were underlined when COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber claimed there was “no science” behind calls for phasing out fossil fuels, sparking outrage among attendees.
Yet the international talks came to a strong conclusion, with a final agreement that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels for the first time in the COP’s history. This followed OPEC pressing nations late in the talks to block such language.
Both the breakthrough and the initial skepticism loom large after Baku was chosen as the site for the 2024 conference.
Azerbaijan is one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the Caucasus region. Its oil industry goes back to the mid-19th century, most of it produced offshore in the Caspian Sea for export, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“Ideally we wouldn’t be hosting COP with another petrochemical state,” said Cherelle Blazer, director of international climate policy at the Sierra Club, who attended the Dubai summit. “I think there’s less known about the dynamics, [but] guarded optimism for sure” ahead of COP29.
Azerbaijan, unlike the UAE, is not an OPEC member but has been invited to join. Brazil, which has been selected as the 2025 host, is an OPEC member that produced about 2.94 million barrels of oil per day in 2020.
“We have to continue to make progress with what we just accomplished at COP28, but I don’t think this is ideal for sure,” Blazer said. “We saw that open interference by OPEC, and I assume they would do the same thing next year. I assume they’ll apply the same pressure next year, even though the host country may not be [a member].”
A major oil producer hosting the summit “doesn’t have to preclude meaningful progress but I think it makes it more difficult,” Blazer added. “This is a conference that’s supposed to be protecting the environment, [but] it is a bit more of the fox guarding the henhouse.”
Ultimately, “a lot of this exercise is performative, marketing and greenwashing,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
“The key bit is to figure out how to have real change on the ground,” Wagner added.
Even COPs hosted by petrostates, he said, could effect meaningful change merely by rethinking their urban design to improve features such as public transportation, “transforming the city itself as a result of this traveling circus.”
“They have a lot of oil wealth — they could, if they wanted to, put in the Beijing metro system times two,” he said.
Wagner expressed hope that between now and COP29, Baku can add features including rapid bus lanes, “so when those 100,000 people show up, maybe do it for that one event and keep going.”
Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, noted that numerous European oil and gas producers have hosted COP summits in the past and that, despite skepticism around the Dubai COP, it was the site of unprecedented progress on fossil fuel language.
The U.S. itself is producing more oil and gas than ever before, and climate advocates have said it must also lead by example if it intends to ask the same of other countries.
“We have to square up what we say we want to do with what we’re actually doing,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday at The Hill’s “Enhancing Energy Efficiency: How Technology is Cutting Carbon Emissions” event. “You can’t teach temperance from a barstool.”
Guilanpour said he did not see evidence that Dubai sought to water things down at the recently concluded summit.
He said it’s possible that the UAE’s position in the Global South and the international oil market gave it credibility among participants, and that this might have led to a stronger final agreement.
“I think it would have been much harder for a Northern country to have had the dynamic and the trust of, for example, regional partners and other fossil fuel producers,” he said. He contrasted it with less forceful language on coal that participants agreed to at the 2021 COP summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“People who were certainly skeptical going into the COP[28] weren’t saying that by the second week,” he added.
COP28: Is it really the beginning of the end for fossil fuels? Here’s what history tells us
Euronews Green
Fri, December 15, 2023
COP28: Is it really the beginning of the end for fossil fuels? Here’s what history tells us
On Wednesday, United Nations climate negotiators made a "historic" declaration that the world must transition away from oil, gas and coal. It is the first time in nearly 30 years of climate talks that the need to reduce fossil fuels has been included in the final deal.
But will countries keep their word by moving away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward more green energies like solar and wind?
History may provide some insight into that question. Below are five of the most important decisions to come from climate talks, and what has happened since.
COP28 strikes ‘historic’ deal to transition away from fossil fuels: What are the key takeaways?
Kyoto Protocol promises emissions cuts in 1997
The third-ever UN climate summit took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 - one of the warmest years recorded in the 20th century.
Known as the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement made there asked 41 high-emitting countries across the world and the European Union to cut their emissions by a little more than 5 per cent compared to 1990 levels.
Emissions cuts can come from many places, from deploying green energies like wind and solar that don't directly produce CO2 to generate power to making things that do, like vehicles with combustible engines, run more cleanly.
Kyoto Gov. Teiichi Aramaki makes a speech during the opening session of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. - AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara File
Despite the agreement to cut emissions, it was only in 2005 that countries agreed to finally act on the Kyoto Protocol. But the United States and China - the two highest emitters both then and now - didn't join the agreement. The US signed it agreement, but its Congress did not ratify it.
In terms of sticking to the promises made, Kyoto wasn't successful. Emissions have increased dramatically since then. At the time, 1997 was the hottest year on record since pre-industrial times. 1998 broke that record, as have more than a dozen years since then.
Environmentalists and citizens hold banners calling for reduction of green house gas emissions in front of the Heian shrine in Kyoto, western Japan in 1997 - AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara, File
This year is virtually certain to be the hottest the world has ever seen.
But Kyoto is still considered a landmark moment in the fight against climate change because it was first time so many countries recognised the problem and pledged to act on it.
Weakened EU vehicle emissions standards could mean €100 billion in health and environmental damages
Copenhagen's 2009 climate cash pledge
By the time the 2009 conference in Denmark came around, the world was capping off its warmest decade on record - another record which has since been broken.
The summit is widely regarded as a failure for the impasse between developed and developing countries on slashing emissions and whether poorer nations could use fossil fuels to grow their economies.
Still, it did see one major pledge: money for countries to transition to clean energy.
Rich countries promised to channel $100 billion (roughly €91 billion) a year to developing countries for green technologies by 2020. But they didn't reach $100 billion by the start of the 2020s, drawing criticism from developing states and environmentalists alike.
Danish military appear next to a sign reading "Copenhagen Seal the Deal" in the centre of Copenhagen in 2009. - AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File
In 2022, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development said rich countries might have finally met and even exceeded this goal. But Oxfam, a group focused on anti-poverty efforts, said it's likely that 70 per cent of the funds were in the form of loans that actually increased the debt crisis in developing countries.
And as climate change worsens, experts say the funds promised are not enough.
Research published by climate economist Nicholas Stern found that developing countries likely need $2 trillion (€1.8 trillion) for climate action every year by 2030.
Climate funds for Indigenous Peoples 'evaporate' before reaching them, report reveals
The 2015 Paris Agreement's 1.5C limit
It wasn't until 2015 that a global pact to fight climate change was adopted by nearly 200 nations. It called on the world to collectively slash greenhouse gases.
But they decided it would be non-binding, so countries that didn't comply couldn't be sanctioned.
The Paris Agreement is widely considered the single biggest UN achievement in efforts to confront climate change. It was agreed upon eight years ago to a standing ovation at the plenary. Nations agreed to keep warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, and ideally no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Celebration as the Paris Agreement is adopted at COP21 in Paris France in 2015. - AP Photo/Francois Mori, File
Paris' legacy continues, with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees still central to climate discussions. Scientists agree that the 1.5 threshold needs to be upheld because every tenth of a degree of warming brings even more disastrous consequences, in the form of extreme weather events, for an already hot planet.
The world hasn't exceeded the limit set in the Paris Agreement - it has warmed around 1.1 or 1.2 degrees Celsius since the early 1800s - but is currently well on its way there, unless drastic emissions cuts are made quickly.
Glasgow's 2021 pledge to 'phase down' coal
Six years after Paris, global warming had hit such a critical point that negotiators were looking to recommit to the goal of capping warming to the levels agreed in 2015.
Average temperatures were already 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times.
The Glasgow summit was postponed until 2021 as the world was emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. It included mass protests headlined by climate activist Greta Thunberg, who helped lead a global movement of youth activists to demand more action from leaders.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks on the stage of a demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland during COP26 in 2021. - AP Photo/Jon Super
After last-minute disagreements over the language of the final document, countries agreed to "phase-down" coal, less strong than the original idea of a "phase-out." India and China, two heavily coal-reliant emerging economies, pushed to water the language down.
Coal gets free pass under electricity market reform
Alok Sharma, COP26 President, fought back tears as he accepted this last-minute motion to weaken the language of the Glasgow Climate Pact.
Britain's Alok Sharma President of the COP26 looks out at delegates during the closing plenary session at COP26 in 2021. - AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali
The burning of coal is responsible for more emissions than any other fossil fuel, approximately 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The burning of oil and gas are also major sources of emissions too.
So far, countries have failed to deliver on the Glasgow deal. Emissions from coal have slightly increased and major coal-using countries have yet to begin moving away from the dirtiest of fossil fuels.
India is a case in point. It is dependent on coal for more than 70 per cent of power generation and plans a major expansion of coal-based power generation capacity over the next 16 months.
From living in tents to missing school, here’s why climate change is a ‘child rights crisis’
The Sharm el-Sheikh loss and damage fund agreement
At last year's climate talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, countries agreed for the first time to create a fund to help poorer nations recover from the impacts of climate change.
It came just a few months after devastating flooding in Pakistan that killed nearly 2,000 people and caused losses of over $3.2 trillion (€2.9 trillion). COP27 delegates decided to set up the loss and damage fund so that destroyed homes, flooded land and lost income from crops damaged by climate change would compensated.
After disagreements about what the fund should look like, it was formally created on the first day of this year's talks in Dubai.
A hand reads "pay" calling for reparations for loss and damage at COP27 in 2022. - AP Photo/Peter Dejong
More than $700 million (around €640 million) has already been pledged. But the pledges - and the amounts the countries choose to commit - are voluntary. A fact reflected in the comparatively small contribution pledged by the US - historically one of the world's biggest emitters.
Climate experts also say the pledges are just a fraction of the billions needed, as climate-driven weather extremes such as cyclones, rising sea levels, floods and droughts are increasing as temperatures rise.
'It's finished!': IEA boss says COP28 bid farewell to fossil fuels
Catherine HOURS
Fri, December 15, 2023
IEA boss Fatih Birol says fossil fuels are 'finished' (JOEL SAGET)
While the UN's COP28 climate summit marked a pivot moment, when the world pledged to say "goodbye" to fossil fuels, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told AFP on Friday, it needs to now urgently boost finance for the energy transition in developing countries.
Birol welcomed the landmark agreement struck at the negotiations in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, under which nearly 200 countries agreed that the world should be "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems".
But he said the next challenge would be to drive investment in emerging economies, particularly to reach for COP28's goal of tripling global renewables capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.
Q: How do you feel about this agreement?
It is a good outcome, a significant COP result.
The most important thing for me from this COP meeting is that the direction of travel for the global energy system now has been signed off by 200 countries around the world.
As of now everyone -- governments, energy industry, investors -- must make crystal clear what they are really doing in real life to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in the next six years.
So everybody now has the right to ask the CEO of an oil company or the head of a government or a minister of energy how the decision you are taking now on this or that issue will help the world move away from fossil fuels, as it has been agreed in COP28.
What is missing big time, in my view, is how to help developing countries to finance their green energy transitions.
Q: How can the deal be translated into real life?
It gave an unmistakable signal to investors that if you continue to invest in fossil fuels you may well have serious business risks -- in addition to the climate risk this investment is causing.
And also, in my view, it gives a signal to the investors for clean energy that they may be more profitable than many people now believe they are.
As such, it is very important.
When we talk about climate change, it is not only people in London or in Paris or Sydney who are raising the alarm.
More and more people all around the world, from the cities of New Delhi to Jakarta to Nairobi, are seeing the clear links between use of fossil fuels, and (the) increasing and serious climate impacts (they) are experiencing in their daily lives.
This is very important.
This is in my view, will be a major problem for the fossil fuel industry and for the investors.
Q: You mention the lack of funding for developing countries. Do you see any movement on this issue?
It is a big problem. (At the time of the Paris Agreement in 2015), clean energy investment in the world was $1 trillio, and today it is close to $2 trillion.
But the problem is this increase -- almost $1 trillion increase -- comes from the advanced economies and China.
Green energy investment in the rest of the world is completely flat. No growth.
Just for their own interest, (advanced economies) would in my view need to support clean energy finance in developing countries, because for example, in Europe, even if tomorrow's (greenhouse gas) emissions go to zero, the impact of climate change in Europe would not change at all if the emissions from the other countries go in line with the current trend.
Emissions don't have a passport.
In my view this is the missing link in the COP28 outcome.
Financing the clean energy transition will be a top priority for our agency (at the next COP negotiations, COP29, in Azerbaijan in late 2024).
Q: Is the world on the right track on renewables?
We are not on the right path.
Our next job will be a translation job -- translating those targets to the real concrete energy policies around the world.
Q: Observers have pointed to potential loopholes in the COP28 agreement, like the nod to gas as a 'transition fuel'. Is this a concern?
I wouldn't say that tomorrow the use of gas will be zero.
It needs to decline, and to decline rapidly. But different parts of the world will have different profiles. Europe is different from Africa.
Two hundred countries have signed a document to say goodbye to fossil fuels.
The direction of travel is extremely clear. There is no way to change it now. Too late, it's finished!
cho/klm/gil
Thornwood student on U.N. Climate Change conference: ‘We’re all connected’
Alexandra Kukulka, Chicago Tribune
Fri, December 15, 2023
Avery Smith, a senior at Thornwood High School, said his favorite moment at the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change, or COP28, conference hosted in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates was listening to a panel discussion with Indigenous people from Canada about how climate change affects them.
“It was a panel of four women, and the elder was talking about how the hunters and the trappers in their culture rely very heavily on nature,” Smith said. “With climate change, they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have anything to pass down to the next generation because their knowledge was antiquated. It didn’t apply anymore because the climate changed that much.”
Smith, of South Holland, said he had the opportunity to interview the elder and they had a powerful conversation about the effects of climate change.
“That’s the crux of everything, but especially the climate conversation,” Smith said. “If you have a group of people who think that the problem only affects them or that the problem doesn’t affect them, then you’ll never fix the problem, because the truth is the problem affects everybody. If the problem affects one of us it affects all of us.”
Smith said he first became interested in learning about climate change three years ago when he joined Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County’s Green Generation, or G2, summer program. Through G2, Smith said he learned about home performance and urban sustainability. Now, he is the G2 Sustainability Youth Council president.
“It felt like an opportunity, and so I took advantage of it. It turned out being one of the better, most memorable experiences of my high school career,” Smith said. “Through that, I kind of became entrenched in the climate crisis.”
In June, Smith gave two speeches at GreenTown Climate & Equity conference at Triton College, organized by Seven Generations Ahead. His speeches caught the attention of representatives with It’s Our Future, Seven Generations Ahead’s youth environmental advocacy program, who ultimately invited him to be one of six area student COP28 delegates.
“He made a huge impression. He was an excellent speaker,” said It’s Our Future manager Rachel Rosner.
The summit, which ran through Dec. 12, brought together thousands of people, including politicians, business leaders, climate experts and environmental advocates from around the world. The global summits are convened to find ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Smith said the delegation’s trip from Dec. 1- 9 was his first time out of the country. The conference was divided into the green zone and the blue zone.
The green zone, which was open to the public, felt more like a museum where people could learn about climate change. The blue zone, which required tickets, was where policymakers held talks, panels and “where the real U.N. stuff happens,” Smith said.
For example, the first day Smith went to the blue zone was to listen to former Vice President Al Gore give a presentation on a new technology called Climate Trace that tracks and measures greenhouse gas emissions.
“They can now fairly accurately, or at least more accurately, tell which countries are polluting and from where and what those sources are. Now, the idea is, that the nations of the world have no choice but to be accountable,” Smith said.
Another moment he enjoyed was listening to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moderate a panel about the need for women in the climate change conversation.
“If women are included in the conversation, if women are not repressed from the conversation, if you open your mind enough to listen to what a woman has to say, the climate conversation can at least take a step forward in a new direction,” Smith said.
The delegates, Rosner said, enjoyed talking with people experiencing climate change in real time and returned energized.
Smith said his main takeaway is the interconnection of climate change.
“We’re all connected. We need to be kinder to one another. We need to help people where we can. It may not seem that way, but we help people when we live sustainable lives,” Smith said.
How the World’s First Deal to Ditch Fossil Fuels Was Forged at COP28
Jennifer A Dlouhy, Laura Millan and John Ainger
Fri, December 15, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- It was an improbable scene in Dubai as a top oil executive basked in a standing ovation from hundreds of diplomats tasked with fighting climate change.Sultan Al Jaber, head of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company, had just presided over the two-week COP28 summit that led to the world’s first agreement to move away from fossil fuels. There were tears, hugs and claps on the back as exhausted delegates celebrated a milestone in the battle against global warming.
It was a remarkable turnaround from just two days earlier, when negotiations had become so fraught there were fears they might fall apart. That would have been a disaster for Al Jaber and his army of hired consultants, who had spent months crisscrossing the globe to build support for a deal. And it would signal that the Paris Agreement to stem greenhouse gas emissions was unraveling — catnip for climate-denying populists like Donald Trump.
With the planet baking in the hottest year on record, many nations were determined that this time the world would finally pledge to eradicate — or “phase out” — all fossil fuels. While they had agreed in Glasgow in 2021 to cut some coal, an alliance including the US, European Union and vulnerable island nations wanted this COP to tackle oil and gas as well.
The annual climate negotiations have become increasingly complex since the 2015 breakthrough in Paris. Nations now need to agree on concrete steps needed to keep global temperature rise within 1.5C, forcing delegates to grapple with thorny issues that will directly impact their economic prospects.
Read More: Is It Time to Change How We Talk About 1.5C?
The positions that countries take have become “more vague,” said Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister. “There are allies good for one paragraph, but not for another paragraph.”
This account of how the Dubai agreement came together is based on interviews with a dozen negotiators from different countries, some of whom asked not to be named discussing private talks.
COP28 started promisingly with a flurry of announcements that included billions of dollars for green solutions and vulnerable communities. Nations agreed ahead of time on how to run a fund to compensate poor countries for climate damages, resolving an issue that could be a major stumbling block. Al Jaber got more than 50 major oil and gas companies to promise to stem methane emissions.
But then the wheels threatened to come off.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said on the fifth day that his country would “absolutely not” agree to phase down fossil fuels. The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which includes the UAE, days later urged members to reject any language that called for reducing fossil fuel production. Because COP decisions are made by consensus, a single country could block a deal.
Meanwhile Al Jaber was facing a crisis of confidence. Just before COP28 kicked off, a story by the Centre for Climate Reporting alleged he planned to use his position to lobby for oil and gas deals. A video uncovered by The Guardian days later showed he had questioned if fossil fuels need to be phased out to keep global warming to 1.5C.
Al Jaber, who had hired dozens of public relations officers to manage the summit’s media coverage, was visibly angry when he was asked about the CCR report at his first press conference. He flatly denied any inappropriate conversations. When the second scandal broke, it took aides a full day to persuade him to clarify his comments.
The revelations ratcheted up the pressure on Al Jaber to deliver something on fossil fuels. “He was accountable for the result” and “this is a very important incentive,” said Teresa Ribera, Spain’s environmental transition minister. “He insisted that fossil fuels should be part of the agreement.”
On Monday, that goal looked further away than ever. With just two days to go before COP28 was due to end, Al Jaber’s team released a draft that proposed nations “could” employ a menu of options, including ramping up renewable energy and cutting fossil fuels. The language was so weak it angered countries who had been pushing for progress, while the Saudis and their allies wanted to avoid mentioning oil and gas altogether.
“Nobody was happy with it — one sector because of some reasons, and another sector because of opposite reasons,” said María Susana Muhamad, Colombia's environment minister. "That created pressure on both sides to start bridging."
Negotiators gathered for a closed-door meeting where, turn by turn, they detailed flaws with the proposal.
“What we have seen today is unacceptable,” said John Silk, head of the Marshall Islands’ delegation and chair of a bloc of climate-vulnerable island states. “We will not go silently to our watery graves.” A representative from Australia assured him the country would not “sign their death certificates.”
The draft was so universally unacceptable that it ended up bringing countries together, a senior US State Department official said. Whether or not that was Al Jaber’s intention, it empowered his team to push for a stronger agreement or risk a full-scale collapse.
Dozens of bilateral meetings between opposing factions took place on Tuesday, with the US, China and the European Union helping to barter concessions alongside the COP presidency.
“We worked day and night to listen to our allies in developing countries, working with shuttle diplomacy with countries like Brazil, the United States, South Africa — everyone,” said Jennifer Morgan, Germany's special representative for climate.
John Kerry, the US climate envoy, and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, were central figures in bringing countries together after having reached consensus themselves at a meeting in California last month. The special relationship between the veteran diplomats, developed after years of sitting across from each other at the negotiating table, has been a key factor in global climate progress over the years.
It might be the last time the two form the power center of COP talks. Xie is set to retire and it’s unclear if Kerry, who turned 80 earlier this week, will remain in his role. Their numerous meetings in Dubai included birthday festivities, where Xie presented Kerry with a framed series of photos of them together and his grandson gave the US envoy a card.
Kerry recalled how emotions were running high on Tuesday. “You can’t ask us to commit economic suicide,” Kerry said a minister from a fossil fuel producing country told him. European negotiators had at least two difficult meetings with the Saudis. Al Jaber’s team met with a host of countries as techno music blared from a nearby Turkmen restaurant.
Negotiators worked into the night on Tuesday, fueled by chicken dinners with tiramisu, tweaking the language to try and please all parties. That included coal-dependent India and top oil and gas producers such as Iraq. Developing nations, especially in Africa and South America, wanted commitments to come with financial support and to make sure their economic circumstances were taken into consideration.
Earlier international meetings served as building blocks. Inspiration for three key words — to “transition away from” fossil fuels rather than “phase out” or “phase down” — came from a recent Pacific Island Forum communique. Language compelling countries to lay out ambitious and expansive climate pledges for 2035 was drawn from a joint statement released after Xie and Kerry met in November.
Adnan Amin, COP28 chief executive officer and one of Al Jaber’s top lieutenants, offered the first sign of hope around 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Delegates were on the cusp of a deal, he said, as he popped out of the UN climate body’s offices for a brief moment. But he quickly added "Inshallah” – or “God willing” in Arabic.
Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi minister, emerged as an unlikely helper. He swept into the talks just after midnight. After his intervention earlier in the COP, many attendees saw the prince as climate enemy No. 1. Now, here he was, trying to get a text over the line. He convinced a group of developing countries, which includes heavyweights India and China, that this was an agreement the skeptics could accept.
The result was a document gaveled through on Wednesday that wasn’t what anyone wanted, but one everyone could live with for now.
The oil industry had managed to secure two main priorities, with the deal leaving room for some natural gas and highlighting carbon capture as a climate solution. The expensive technology would, in theory, allow for continued burning of fossil fuels without emissions, though some experts warn it’s a long-shot distraction from cutting consumption.
Little progress was made on securing finance for developing countries and the Alliance of Small Island States warned that the pact was far from adequate to meet the climate crisis. “We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step-change in our actions and support,” said Anne Rasmussen, the bloc’s lead negotiator.
Still, the outcome is vindication for Al Jaber, who pitched his ties to the fossil fuel industry as an asset and staked his reputation on being able to bring oil-rich nations along. Pulling off the largest-ever COP summit, with more than 100,000 attendees, marks a diplomatic high point for the UAE. Experts have already pointed out many flaws that will have to be addressed at COP29 in Azerbaijan, but also acknowledged the hurdles Al Jaber had to be overcome.
“I don't think that anybody else could have been in the position of doing that,” said Muhamad, the Colombian minister. “In a very paradoxical way, having the COP here in the oil-producing heart of the world ended up producing the result that we accept the transition from fossil fuels.”
--With assistance from Lou Del Bello, Alfred Cang, Nayla Razzouk, Jess Shankleman, Ewa Krukowska and Akshat Rathi.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Experts at odds over result of UN climate talks in Dubai; 'Historic,' 'pipsqueak' or something else?
SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated Thu, December 14, 2023
COP28 Climate Summit
(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The climate negotiations that just finished in Dubai hit upon the essence of compromise, finding common language that nearly 200 countries accepted, at times grudgingly.
For the first time in nearly three decades of such talks, the final agreement mentioned fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — as the cause of climate change and said the world needs to be “transitioning away” from them. But it did not use the words “phase out," sought by advocates and more than 100 countries who argued it would provide sharper direction for the world to move quickly toward renewable energies that don't produce the greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet.
For an agreement so steeped in compromise, what experts thought of it, including what impact it could have in the years to come, was as polarizing as can be.
The Associated Press asked 23 different delegates, analysts, scientists and activists where they would rank COP28 among all climate conferences. More than half said COP28 was the most significant climate talks ever. Yet a smaller but still large chunk dismissed it as awful. Even some who deemed it the most significant also highlighted what they characterized as big problems.
Thirteen of the 23 said they’d rank what COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber calls the UAE Consensus in the top five of negotiations and deals. Several called it the most significant since the 2015 Paris talks, which set specific goals to limit temperature increases and was the nearly unanimous choice for the most meaningful climate meeting.
The two weeks of negotiations at COP28 also put into effect a new compensation fund for nations hit hard by the impacts of climate change, like cyclones, floods and drought. Called loss and damage, the fund drew nearly $800 million in pledges during the talks. Nations also agreed to triple the use of renewable fuel, double energy efficiency and adopted stronger language and commitments to help poorer nations adapt to worsening extreme weather from climate change.
Leaders, mostly non-scientists, said Dubai kept alive the world’s slim and fading hopes to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, the goal adopted in Paris. The world has already warmed 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Many scientific calculations that look at policies and pledges project at least 2.5 to nearly 3 degrees of warming (4.3 to nearly 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), which could lead to more extremes and make it harder for humans to adapt.
Negotiators, who spent late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning in special closed-door meetings with al-Jaber before the agreement was reached, were especially proud, using the word historic frequently in public pronouncements. When asked where COP28 fit in that history, they stayed on message.
“I think it ranks very high,” said Zambia Green Economy and Environment Minister Collins Nzovu, who headed his nation’s delegation. “Loss and damages is there. GGA (the adaptation agreement) is there. We talked about fossil fuels, as well. So I think we’re going somewhere."
German climate special envoy Jennifer Morgan, who has attended all these talks either as an analyst, environmental activist and now negotiator, said it “is very significant” and not just for the list of actions agreed to.
“It shows that multilateralism works in a world where we are having trouble cooperating in a number of different areas,” Morgan told the AP hours after the agreement was gaveled through.
Former U.S. special climate envoy Todd Stern, who helped craft the Paris deal, put the UAE agreement as number five in his list of significant climate meetings, with Paris first.
Stern’s colleague at the RMI think-tank, CEO Jon Creyts, put this year’s deal second only to Paris “precisely because the message is comprehensive, economywide. It also engaged the private sector and local communities at a scale that is unprecedented. The U.S. and China were once again united in leadership mode while voices of the most vulnerable were heard."
Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow also thought it ranked second only to Paris: “This COP saw the loss and damage fund established, it finally named the cause of the climate crisis — fossil fuels — for the first time and it committed the world to transition away from them, with action required in this decade. That is a lot more than we get from most COPs.”
Johan Rockstrom, a scientist who heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, praised what happened, but like so many others who ranked it high, also saw problems.
“Finally, we have a plan the world can work with towards a phase-out of oil, coal and gas. It is not perfect, by far, and not entirely aligned with science, but it is something we can work with,” Rockstrom said in an email. “Will it deliver 1.5°C (even if implemented)? The answer is no.”
The problem is the agreement has too many loopholes that allow countries to continue producing and even expand use of fossil fuels, said Center for Biological Diversity’s Jean Su. She also cited a portion of the text that allows for “transitional” fuels — a term the industry often uses for natural gas that isn't as polluting as coal but still contributes to warming.
“Politically it broke a major barrier, but it also contained poison pills that could lead to the expansion of fossil fuels and climate injustice," she said.
Joanna Depledge, a climate negotiations historian at Cambridge University in England, said the idea that the weak language is “somehow seen as a triumph” shows the world is in trouble, Depledge said.
“The yawning chasm between science and policy, between intention and action, barely shifted in Dubai,” she added.
Scientists were among those who ranked the UAE deal low.
“In the context of these previous, truly significant COPs, Dubai is a pipsqueak,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international affairs.
The agreement language was “like promising your doctor that you will ‘transition away from doughnuts’ after being diagnosed with diabetes," said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. "The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating.”
Mann, like former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, called for a dramatic reform of the COP process. For his part, Gore said it’s too early to judge this COP’s significance, but he’s unhappy with the slow progress.
“It’s been 31 years since Rio, and eight since the Paris Agreement,” Gore said. “Only now are we even summoning the political will to name the core problem, which has otherwise been blocked by fossil fuel companies and petrostates.”
Gore and others still have hope, though.
“I think 1.5 is achievable,” said Thibyan Ibrahim, who led negotiations on adaptation on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States. “You need to ensure that people are going to do the things that they have said they’ll do, that the pledges will be actually reached and that commitments will be followed through.”
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Sibi Arasu and Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment
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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
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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.
Historic climate deal does the ‘bare minimum’ as the world warms, burns and floods
Lucas Thompson and Denise Chow and Evan Bush
Thu, December 14, 2023
If there was ever a year that called for bold global action on climate change, 2023 was it.
In what will likely go down as the warmest year on record — one rife with catastrophic floods, scorching heat waves, devastating wildfires and enduring drought — leaders from nearly 200 countries gathered to chart a path forward in the fight against climate change.
After more than two weeks of tense negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, representatives from 198 countries agreed Wednesday to “transition away” from fossil fuels.
It was a historic deal but one that once again fell short for many climate activists, who saw it as further evidence that efforts to address climate change are moving too slowly and are being compromised by fossil fuel interests.
Former Vice President Al Gore called the agreement an “important milestone” but added that acknowledging the role that the burning of fossil fuels has played in the climate crisis is “the bare minimum we need and is long overdue.”
“Whether this is a turning point that truly marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era depends on the actions that come next and the mobilization of finance required to achieve them,” Gore wrote Wednesday on the social media platform X.
Skepticism of what comes next is understandable. The COP agreement’s lack of a concrete plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels adds to growing concern that the big-picture moves necessary to avoid drastic environmental consequences are coming up short. Sure, the rise of clean energy technology and broader social awareness of global warming has spurred some optimism, but many environmentalists stress that these developments could mean little without a drastic reduction in how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere.
fossil fuel protest climate summit (Fadel Dawod / Getty Images)
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday that the era of fossil fuels “must end,” adding that science indicates it will be impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) without eliminating their use.
“Whether you like it or not, fossil fuel phase out is inevitable,” he wrote on X. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come too late.”
The COP28 climate summit was controversial from the start. The host country, the UAE, is an oil-rich nation, and the meeting’s president, Sultan al-Jaber, is chief executive of the UAE’s state oil company, ADNOC.
Early in the conference, Al-Jaber came under fire for claiming in an online event in late November that there was “no science” to support the need to phase out fossil fuels to limit global warming, as first reported by The Guardian.
The event came as faith that oil companies are committed to reducing fossil fuel emissions has dwindled. While major oil and gas companies previously signaled they would transition to clean energy and do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they have walked back many of those claims over the past year. Critics have accused the industry of “greenwashing,” all while companies have increased exploration and hundreds of new oil and gas projects have been approved around the world.
Throughout the meeting, which ran into overtime talks, critics questioned how much could be accomplished on fossil fuels when it was being held in Dubai and led by Al-Jaber. Those fears came to the forefront when it became clear that the final agreement would not commit to a fossil fuel phaseout.
While the phrases “transition away” and “phase out” sound similar, there are key distinctions between them. Phasing out means their use in energy systems will ultimately be eliminated, while “transition away” represents a compromise, implying their use will be cut but will still continue.
Nate Hultman, a former State Department official and the founder and director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, said it was an open question going into the conference as to whether world leaders would seriously debate the future of fossil fuels.
“There was a risk this could have been an exercise in avoiding an issue,” he said.
But Hultman said the final agreement — which calls for countries to “transition away” from fossil fuels in an equitable way, to triple the amount of renewable energy installed by 2030, and to shore up leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane — makes clear that world leaders did reckon with a future without fossil fuels.
“The outcome indicates, this issue not only was substantially discussed, but highlighted in the text. There are good, strong elements,” said Hultman, who attended his 21st COP this year. “It will be important having this kind of signal sent about transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Still, the agreement is nonbinding and its critics — in particular, leaders from poor, developing countries and island nations that are disproportionately affected by climate change — said it does not go far enough to eliminate fossil fuels and keep the world below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.
Many climate scientists and activists have expressed frustration that calls to “phase out” fossil fuels were significantly watered down.
“The agreement emerging from COP28 rightly emphasizes nature as a solution, but the failure to acknowledge the need to phase out the use of fossil fuels is dispiriting,” Mustafa Santiago Ali, executive vice president of conservation and justice at the nonprofit National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement Wednesday.
Earlier in the week, as drafts of the agreement emerged, emotions ran even higher. Gore wrote Monday on X that “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure.”
In the end, nations agreed for the first time in nearly 30 years of these U.N. summits that a shift away from fossil fuels was needed to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by or around 2050 and to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Merely mentioning what has been the elephant in the room at previous COP meetings was hailed as a major milestone.
“The very fact that the phasing out of fossil fuels has become center stage in an international arena would have been hard to imagine five years ago and is a significant advance,” said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist and director of the Stockholm Environment Institute U.S., which is based in Seattle. “It means there is a shelf life, a due date, on fossil fuels now. We’re at a point where we can envision transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Lazarus said the consensus nature of the international process — every country participating in deliberations effectively has veto power — makes global progress a grind.
“People talk about how it’s just words and not action, but the discourse that comes out of these international meetings have a remarkable resonance and ability to change the conversation,” Lazarus said. “Unless we have a sense of global action to phase out fossil fuels, to reduce emissions across the board, countries will not have the same incentives to act in the ways they need to.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
How the COP28 deal got done
Reuters Videos
Updated Thu, December 14, 2023
STORY: COP28 PRESIDENT SULTAN AL JABER: "We have now reached the end..."
For the first time in history, countries have expressed a desire to end the oil age.
The COP28 accord from the summit in Dubai calls for “transitioning” away from fossil fuels.
Key players, including conference president Sultan Al Jaber, say it's “historic.”
AL JABER: “I must say that you did it, you delivered."
U.S. CLIMATE ENVOY JOHN KERRY: “This is a sea-change moment…”
EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN: "I think this is a global turning point…”
Some remain dissatisfied with concessions allowing for the use of tech such as carbon capture to keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
But striking a deal was by no means a foregone conclusion.
Here’s a look at how the COP28 deal… got done.
AL JABER: “I promised I would roll up my sleeves…”
Before the conference, COP28 President Al Jaber was pilloried by environmental activists as untrustworthy.
He runs the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company.
But he didn't want to oversee a failed conference.
Before it started, his office pumped up climate initiatives…
Like an EU- and U.S.-led declaration by nations to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
U.S. VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: "The urgency of this moment is clear..."
And a U.S.-China cooperation agreement reached in November.
Sources say getting a deal took deft maneuvering by the conference host...
As well as backchannel diplomacy from the top envoys of the world’s biggest polluters, the U.S. and China.
Al Jaber intentionally stirred the pot, sources say.
His approach was to put out deliberately provocative drafts for a deal that forced negotiators to reveal the outer limits of their positions...
Then, find common ground.
On December 11, Al Jaber’s draft deal outlined a broad “menu” of options that countries could – not should – take to fight climate change.
Those options ranged from carbon capture to reducing fossil fuel use, or cutting subsidies.
Missing... Was any mention of a “phase out.”
That sparked outrage... including from small island nations:
SAMOAN ENVIRONMENT MINISTER, TOEOLESULUSULU CEDRIC SCHUSTER: “We will not sign our death certificates.” // "It is our very survival that is at stake.”
While scores of countries came to Dubai wanting language around “phasing out” fossil fuels entirely….
It was something oil group OPEC particularly opposed.
But the outrage expressed at the summit was the desired effect, according to one source, who said the move made clear where people stood.
The presidency then took meetings into the early morning hours over the next days...
And did not release an updated draft until December 13, a day after the summit’s scheduled end.
The term “phase out” remained a red line that some like China and Saudi Arabia would never accept.
So, U.S. envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua found a workaround.
They already had a road map from their recent climate cooperation in November: use words that essentially mean the same thing as "phase out."
With China and the U.S. aligned, it was just a matter of getting OPEC on board.
One source said it was Kerry, China and the Saudis that played a constructive role at the eleventh hour.
A source familiar with the negotiations said the final flurry of diplomacy ensured the deal would pass.
AL JABER: "Allow me please to declare the meeting adjourned"
Reuters Videos
Updated Thu, December 14, 2023
STORY: COP28 PRESIDENT SULTAN AL JABER: "We have now reached the end..."
For the first time in history, countries have expressed a desire to end the oil age.
The COP28 accord from the summit in Dubai calls for “transitioning” away from fossil fuels.
Key players, including conference president Sultan Al Jaber, say it's “historic.”
AL JABER: “I must say that you did it, you delivered."
U.S. CLIMATE ENVOY JOHN KERRY: “This is a sea-change moment…”
EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN: "I think this is a global turning point…”
Some remain dissatisfied with concessions allowing for the use of tech such as carbon capture to keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
But striking a deal was by no means a foregone conclusion.
Here’s a look at how the COP28 deal… got done.
AL JABER: “I promised I would roll up my sleeves…”
Before the conference, COP28 President Al Jaber was pilloried by environmental activists as untrustworthy.
He runs the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company.
But he didn't want to oversee a failed conference.
Before it started, his office pumped up climate initiatives…
Like an EU- and U.S.-led declaration by nations to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
U.S. VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: "The urgency of this moment is clear..."
And a U.S.-China cooperation agreement reached in November.
Sources say getting a deal took deft maneuvering by the conference host...
As well as backchannel diplomacy from the top envoys of the world’s biggest polluters, the U.S. and China.
Al Jaber intentionally stirred the pot, sources say.
His approach was to put out deliberately provocative drafts for a deal that forced negotiators to reveal the outer limits of their positions...
Then, find common ground.
On December 11, Al Jaber’s draft deal outlined a broad “menu” of options that countries could – not should – take to fight climate change.
Those options ranged from carbon capture to reducing fossil fuel use, or cutting subsidies.
Missing... Was any mention of a “phase out.”
That sparked outrage... including from small island nations:
SAMOAN ENVIRONMENT MINISTER, TOEOLESULUSULU CEDRIC SCHUSTER: “We will not sign our death certificates.” // "It is our very survival that is at stake.”
While scores of countries came to Dubai wanting language around “phasing out” fossil fuels entirely….
It was something oil group OPEC particularly opposed.
But the outrage expressed at the summit was the desired effect, according to one source, who said the move made clear where people stood.
The presidency then took meetings into the early morning hours over the next days...
And did not release an updated draft until December 13, a day after the summit’s scheduled end.
The term “phase out” remained a red line that some like China and Saudi Arabia would never accept.
So, U.S. envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua found a workaround.
They already had a road map from their recent climate cooperation in November: use words that essentially mean the same thing as "phase out."
With China and the U.S. aligned, it was just a matter of getting OPEC on board.
One source said it was Kerry, China and the Saudis that played a constructive role at the eleventh hour.
A source familiar with the negotiations said the final flurry of diplomacy ensured the deal would pass.
AL JABER: "Allow me please to declare the meeting adjourned"
Was COP28 a Success or Flop? Depends Who You Ask
Aryn Baker / Dubai
Thu, December 14, 2023
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.
There is nothing quite like an “I’ll try” response to my requests for my family to help more around the house to set my blood on fire. While those two words acknowledge the problem—my husband knows a heater in an empty room drives our electricity costs higher, my daughter knows that laundry left to molder in the washing machine will smell, and they both have seen that plants left unwatered will die—the phrase is nonetheless wholly lacking in conviction and commitment. In our household, it has become shorthand for “not happening anytime soon, if at all.”
Fourteen days of tense negotiations over how the world should address the looming threat of climate change at the COP28 conference in Dubai concluded on Dec. 13 with a similar response. The 21-page “Global Stocktake” text lays out the pathway that nations must take to limit global warming to the previously-agreed-upon goal of no more than 2°C higher than pre-industrial levels—beyond which scientists say severe storms, floods, droughts, heat, and wildfires will increasingly surpass humanity’s ability to adapt. The document is noteworthy for finally acknowledging that countries need to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Nonetheless, it is riddled with loopholes and lacks clear goals and fixed timelines. Boiled down into three words, it says, essentially, “We will try.”
Read More: Why Colombia’s President is Determined to Ditch the Country’s Oil Wealth
For those most immediately threatened by climate change, such as island nations and low-lying coastal countries already suffering the effects of sea-level rise, the final deal was not good enough. "We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step change in our actions," said Samoan chief negotiator Anne Rasmussen, speaking on behalf of the 39-nation Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which informs the climate negotiations process, have long said that the only way to keep climate change in check is to rapidly reduce emissions from fossil fuels. Yet, Rasmussen said, the final text did not adequately reflect that advice. “We reference the science in this text … but then we refrain from an agreement to take the relevant action in order to act in line with what the science says we need to do.”
Still, the fact that fossil fuels got a mention at all is a triumph, says Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organization focused on climate change. The draft text went through multiple iterations over the course of the negotiations, and one version, supported by oil and gas producing nations, dropped a reference to the root cause of climate change entirely. But pushback from the U.S., the E.U., and AOSIS saw fossil fuels put back in at the last minute, even though the final version lacked the concrete term “phaseout” that many nations, including Samoa, wanted to see. “Fossil fuels finally faced a reckoning at the U.N. climate negotiations after three decades of dodging the spotlight,” said Dasgupta, in a statement. “This historic outcome marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.”
In a sign of incremental progress, the new agreement also calls for a tripling of renewable energy and a doubling of energy efficiency by 2030. But it failed to make any progress at all on coal, only repeating tired language dating back to COP26 in Glasgow, calling for an “acceleration of efforts towards a phasedown.” And in a turn of phrase that worries many climate scientists and activists, COP28’s final text also contains references to “transition” fuels that could be interpreted to mean natural gas, a potent source of planet-warming methane. There is also greater recognition of the need for adaptation measures to enable countries to adjust to climatic upheavals, but little on how such measures should be funded for poor and developing nations.
Like any good compromise, the final agreement contains elements guaranteed to both please, and piss off, competing factions. As such, the outcome will be seen as a win for the U.A.E., which hosted COP28, and this year’s conference president Sultan Al Jaber, who managed to bridge the gap between petro states and countries on the frontlines of climate change. But that doesn’t mean that the talks themselves can be deemed a success, especially when it comes to the final outcome.
Read More: What Happens When You Put a Fossil Fuel Exec in Charge of Solving Climate Change
The year 2023 has already been declared the hottest on record, with the earth’s average temperature briefly exceeding 2°C (3.6°F) above the pre-industrial average on Nov. 17. Thousands died this year due to extreme heat, floods, storms, and wildfires linked to climate change and nearly 2 billion people are currently impacted by drought. The Panama Canal is drying up, the oceans have never been hotter in recorded history, and glaciers in both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting at unprecedented rates.
The primary goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which held the first COP (Conference of Parties) meeting in Berlin in 1995, was to “stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses at levels that would prevent ‘dangerous’ human interference with the climate system.” Yet year after year, emissions have continued to rise, bringing the planet dangerously close to the tipping point. “A successful COP means that global carbon emissions will stop this year,” says oceanographer Enric Sala, who attended this year’s conference as an advocate for the oceans. “There has been significant progress. But unless we reduce emissions dramatically, phase off fossil fuels and replace them with renewables, while removing excess carbon from the atmosphere, then this COP has failed.”
