COP28 climate agreement is a step backward on fossil fuels
Alaa Al Khourdajie & Chris Bataille & Lars J Nilsson
Thu, December 14, 2023
Delegates from nearly 200 countries at COP28 agreed to text calling for the world to move "away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner." Stronger demands to "phase out" fossil fuels were ultimately unsuccessful. Photo by Ali Haider/EPA-EFE
Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The COP28 climate summit in Dubai has adjourned. The result is "The UAE consensus" on fossil fuels.
This text, agreed upon by delegates from nearly 200 countries, calls for the world to move "away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner." Stronger demands to "phase out" fossil fuels were ultimately unsuccessful.
The agreement also acknowledges the need to phase down "unabated" coal burning and transition toward energy systems consistent with net zero emissions by 2050, while accelerating action in "the critical decade" of the 2020s.
As engineers and scientists who research the necessary changes to pull off this energy system transition, we believe this agreement falls short in addressing the use of fossil fuels at the heart of the climate crisis.
Such an approach is inconsistent with the scientific consensus on the urgency of drastically reducing fossil fuel consumption to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
'Abated' vs. 'unabated'
The combustion of coal, oil and gas accounts for 75% of all global warming to date -- and 90% of CO₂ emissions.
So what does the text actually ask countries to do with these fuels -- and what loopholes might they exploit to continue using them well into the future?
Those countries advocating for the ongoing use of fossil fuels made every effort to add the term "unabated" whenever a fossil fuel phase-down or phase-out was proposed during negotiations.
"Abatement" in this context typically means using capture capture and storage technology to stop CO₂ emissions from engines and furnaces reaching the atmosphere.
However, there is no clear definition of what abatement would entail in the text. This ambiguity allows for a broad and and easily abused interpretation of what constitutes "abated" fossil fuel use.
Will capturing 30% or 60% of CO₂ emissions from burning a quantity of coal, oil or gas be sufficient? Or will fossil fuel use only be considered "abated" if 90% or more of these emissions are captured and stored permanently along with low leakage of "fugitive" emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which can escape from oil and gas infrastructure?
This is important. Despite the agreement supposedly honoring "the science" on climate change, low capture rates with high residual and fugitive emissions are inconsistent with what research has shown is necessary to limit global warming to the internationally agreed guardrails of 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
In a 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that most coal emissions and 33%-66% of natural gas emissions must be captured to be compatible with the 2015 Paris agreement.
That's assuming that the world will have substantial means of sucking carbon (at least several billion tons a year) from the air in future decades. If these miracle machines fail to materialize, our research indicates that carbon capture would need to be near total on all fuels.
The fact that the distinction between "abated" and "unabated" fossil fuels has not been clarified is a missed opportunity to ensure the effectiveness of the Dubai agreement. This lack of clarity can prolong fossil fuel dependence under the guise of "abated" usage.
This would cause wider harm to the transition by allowing continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure -- new coal plants, for instance, as long as some of the carbon they emit is captured (abated) -- thereby diverting resources from more sustainable power sources. This could hobble COP28's other goal: to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
By not explicitly defining these terms, COP28 missed the chance to set a firm, scientifically backed benchmark for future fossil fuel use.
Carbon dioxide removal
Since the world is increasingly likely to overshoot the temperature goals of the Paris agreement, we must actively remove more CO₂ from the atmosphere -- with reforestation and direct air capture, among other methods -- than is emitted in future.
Some carbon removal technologies, such as DAC, are very early in their development and scaling them up to remove the necessary quantity of CO₂ will be difficult. And this effort should not detract from the urgent need to reduce emissions in the first place. This balanced approach is vital to not only halt but reverse the trajectory of warming, aligning with the ambitious goals of the Paris agreement.
There has only really been one unambiguously successful U.N. climate summit: Paris 2015, when negotiations for a top-down agreement were ended and the era of collectively and voluntarily raising emissions cuts began.
A common commitment to "phase down and then out" clearly defined unabated fossil fuels was not reached at COP28, but it came close with many parties strongly in favor of it. It would not be surprising if coalitions of like-minded governments proceed with climate clubs to implement it.
The Conversation
Alaa Al Khourdajie is a research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Chris Bataille is an adjunct research fellow in energy and climate policy at Columbia University. Lars J Nilsson is a professor of environmental and energy systems studies at Lund University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.
Alaa Al Khourdajie & Chris Bataille & Lars J Nilsson
Thu, December 14, 2023
Delegates from nearly 200 countries at COP28 agreed to text calling for the world to move "away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner." Stronger demands to "phase out" fossil fuels were ultimately unsuccessful. Photo by Ali Haider/EPA-EFE
Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The COP28 climate summit in Dubai has adjourned. The result is "The UAE consensus" on fossil fuels.
This text, agreed upon by delegates from nearly 200 countries, calls for the world to move "away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner." Stronger demands to "phase out" fossil fuels were ultimately unsuccessful.
The agreement also acknowledges the need to phase down "unabated" coal burning and transition toward energy systems consistent with net zero emissions by 2050, while accelerating action in "the critical decade" of the 2020s.
As engineers and scientists who research the necessary changes to pull off this energy system transition, we believe this agreement falls short in addressing the use of fossil fuels at the heart of the climate crisis.
Such an approach is inconsistent with the scientific consensus on the urgency of drastically reducing fossil fuel consumption to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
'Abated' vs. 'unabated'
The combustion of coal, oil and gas accounts for 75% of all global warming to date -- and 90% of CO₂ emissions.
So what does the text actually ask countries to do with these fuels -- and what loopholes might they exploit to continue using them well into the future?
Those countries advocating for the ongoing use of fossil fuels made every effort to add the term "unabated" whenever a fossil fuel phase-down or phase-out was proposed during negotiations.
"Abatement" in this context typically means using capture capture and storage technology to stop CO₂ emissions from engines and furnaces reaching the atmosphere.
However, there is no clear definition of what abatement would entail in the text. This ambiguity allows for a broad and and easily abused interpretation of what constitutes "abated" fossil fuel use.
Will capturing 30% or 60% of CO₂ emissions from burning a quantity of coal, oil or gas be sufficient? Or will fossil fuel use only be considered "abated" if 90% or more of these emissions are captured and stored permanently along with low leakage of "fugitive" emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which can escape from oil and gas infrastructure?
This is important. Despite the agreement supposedly honoring "the science" on climate change, low capture rates with high residual and fugitive emissions are inconsistent with what research has shown is necessary to limit global warming to the internationally agreed guardrails of 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
In a 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated that most coal emissions and 33%-66% of natural gas emissions must be captured to be compatible with the 2015 Paris agreement.
That's assuming that the world will have substantial means of sucking carbon (at least several billion tons a year) from the air in future decades. If these miracle machines fail to materialize, our research indicates that carbon capture would need to be near total on all fuels.
The fact that the distinction between "abated" and "unabated" fossil fuels has not been clarified is a missed opportunity to ensure the effectiveness of the Dubai agreement. This lack of clarity can prolong fossil fuel dependence under the guise of "abated" usage.
This would cause wider harm to the transition by allowing continued investment in fossil fuel infrastructure -- new coal plants, for instance, as long as some of the carbon they emit is captured (abated) -- thereby diverting resources from more sustainable power sources. This could hobble COP28's other goal: to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
By not explicitly defining these terms, COP28 missed the chance to set a firm, scientifically backed benchmark for future fossil fuel use.
Carbon dioxide removal
Since the world is increasingly likely to overshoot the temperature goals of the Paris agreement, we must actively remove more CO₂ from the atmosphere -- with reforestation and direct air capture, among other methods -- than is emitted in future.
Some carbon removal technologies, such as DAC, are very early in their development and scaling them up to remove the necessary quantity of CO₂ will be difficult. And this effort should not detract from the urgent need to reduce emissions in the first place. This balanced approach is vital to not only halt but reverse the trajectory of warming, aligning with the ambitious goals of the Paris agreement.
There has only really been one unambiguously successful U.N. climate summit: Paris 2015, when negotiations for a top-down agreement were ended and the era of collectively and voluntarily raising emissions cuts began.
A common commitment to "phase down and then out" clearly defined unabated fossil fuels was not reached at COP28, but it came close with many parties strongly in favor of it. It would not be surprising if coalitions of like-minded governments proceed with climate clubs to implement it.
The Conversation
Alaa Al Khourdajie is a research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. Chris Bataille is an adjunct research fellow in energy and climate policy at Columbia University. Lars J Nilsson is a professor of environmental and energy systems studies at Lund University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.
'Where is the money?' COP28 deal throws spotlight on funding
Kelly MACNAMARA
Thu, December 14, 2023
Environmental activists at COP28 in Dubai (Giuseppe CACACE)
After COP28's landmark call for the world to move away from fossil fuels, experts say the pressure is on to fast-track -- and fund -- the global energy transition.
The agreement was a compromise wrestled out of countries with sharply conflicting interests by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, hosting COP28 in the last days of the hottest year humans have recorded so far.
It calls for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner" -- after three decades without naming the main driver of planet-heating pollution.
With rapidly-accelerating climate impacts slamming communities across the planet, observers said this was both a major milestone and the very minimum needed to steer the world onto a safer track.
The bigger challenge will be turning the promise of the COP28 agreement into sweeping global decarbonisation that comes close to the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels.
COP28's goal to triple global renewables capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030 will require significant investment, particularly in developing countries least responsible for warming.
An editorial in Indonesia's Jakarta Post on Thursday called on rich polluters to scale up finance.
"COP28, where is the dough?" it asked.
The Dubai text acknowledged that trillions of dollars are needed by debt-stricken developing countries to meet their climate targets this decade as they face worsening warming impacts.
But Senegal's climate envoy Madeleine Diouf Sarr, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group, said it "fails to deliver a credible response to this challenge", calling for 2024 UN climate talks to work to close the gap.
- Dangerous, expensive, uncertain -
Countries in Dubai were tasked with responding to a damning assessment of progress on the world’s existing flagship climate promise -- the 2015 Paris deal’s commitment to limit warming to "well below" 2C and preferably to the safer 1.5C threshold.
At 1.2 degrees of warming, scientists have said climate change was a major driver of the extreme heat that has scorched across the planet this year and stoked massive fires in parts of Canada.
It increased the severity of devastating drought in the Horn of Africa -- and then exacerbated catastrophic flooding in the same region.
"Until fossil fuels are phased out, the world will continue to become a more dangerous, more expensive and more uncertain place to live," said Friederike Otto, senior Climate Science lecturer at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.
Before COP28, Earth was heading towards disastrous heating of between 2.5C and 2.9C by 2100, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The Dubai decision had not changed the reality that the world is not on track, said its Executive Director Inger Andersen.
"Now the hard work of decarbonisation must begin," Andersen said, calling for greater financial support for poorer countries in their energy transitions.
Observers said a lack of specifics on finance in the COP28 text sets the stage for the issue to dominate COP29 talks next year in Azerbaijan and ups the pressure for sweeping climate-focused reforms of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Nicholas Stern, of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, said countries should respond to the COP28 decision with "a huge increase in investment" in clean energy and green growth.
That is particularly needed in developing countries, except China, which face an estimated $2.4 trillion annual cost by 2030 to meet their climate and development priorities.
- End of an era? -
The International Energy Agency estimates global clean energy investments need to reach $4.5 trillion a year by 2030.
That is a steep increase from the $1.8 trillion this year, helped by policies in the United States, Europe, China and India.
IEA chief Fatih Birol called on countries to follow through on COP28 with more "concrete policies", in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Nevertheless, "spectacular" growth of technologies like wind and solar, as well as electric vehicles, has enabled the IAE to forecast that world fossil fuel demand will peak this decade.
That prognosis has been shrugged off by fossil fuel producers.
They plan to continue to expand oil, gas and coal despite the message from climate scientists that this would push the world beyond the 1.5C target.
Observers say loopholes in the Dubai text include the focus on fossil fuels for energy -- potentially leaving out polluting products like plastics and fertilisers -- as well as a nod to gas as a "transition fuel".
Bill McKibben, the founder of environmental campaign group 350.org, said while the COP28 call to shift from fossil fuels may seem like "the single most obvious thing one could possibly say about climate change", it could give activists a powerful new argument.
"We need to insist that the clear, plain meaning of the language is, the fossil fuel era is over," he wrote in his newsletter.
klm/rl
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Updated Wed, December 13, 2023
United Nations Climate Chief Simon Stiell, from left, COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber and Hana Al-Hashimi, chief COP28 negotiator for the United Arab Emirates, pose for photos at the end of the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
The COP28 climate summit wrapped up Wednesday with a compromise agreement that calls on nations to move away from fossil fuels.
But the deal still gives energy-exporting giants such as Saudi Arabia plenty of leeway to continue drilling and presents countries and investors with the huge challenge of how to fund a green-energy shift over the next few years.
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Here’s what’s in the pact: pledges by countries to wean their economies off fossil fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner” this decade; triple their uptake of renewables by 2030; restrict methane emissions; and halt carbon emissions entirely by midcentury.
It’s the first explicit agreement to curb fossil fuel use in the roughly three decades of such multinational negotiations. Scientists say drastic cutbacks are needed to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy, said he was “in awe of the spirit of cooperation” among negotiators. And Dan Jorgensen, the Danish minister for climate and energy, marveled that such an agreement could be reached at a summit hosted by the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.
Here’s what isn’t in it: tough language on outlawing construction of new coal-burning power plants and specific commitments to help finance poorer nations’ energy transitions.
“Asking Nigeria, or indeed, asking Africa, to phase out fossil fuels is like asking us to stop breathing without life support,” said Ishaq Salako, Nigeria’s environmental minister.
Heading into the conference, there was deep skepticism among climate activists and scientists that the UAE and other OPEC nations would try to water down any deal. And indeed, countries such as Saudi Arabia were among those pushing back against efforts to craft a tougher pledge to fully phase out fossil fuels.
The deal is not legally binding. And some critics grumbled that it contained “cavernous loopholes” that would give countries producing fossil fuel incentives to continue oil exploration, including allowing room for “transitional fuels” such as natural gas.
Investors didn’t appear worried about what the pledge might mean for the fossil fuel industry: Shares in Chevron and Exxon Mobil were up slightly in premarket trading Wednesday.
Much work remains. One recent estimate suggests that trillions of dollars in investment is needed to transition to greener fuel sources such as wind and solar and avert a climate catastrophe.
“We must transform the international financial system to pursue and achieve our climate goals,” Kerry told delegates. He added that policies were needed to encourage investment in green initiatives “and shift finance away from the things that put our shared prosperity at risk.”
c.2023 The New York Times Company
RESISTANCE TILL THE BITTER END...
12-year-old Indian activist Licypriya Kangujam interrupts COP28 stage in DubaiMichelle De Pacina
Wed, December 13, 2023
[Source]
Licypriya Kangujam, a 12-year-old climate activist from India, interrupted the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Monday.
What happened: Kangujam ran up the stage with a sign reading “End fossil fuels. Save our planet and our future.” While holding the poster up, she demanded governments to “act now” in phasing out coal, oil and gas, which she says are the top causes of the climate crisis today.
Although Kangujam was escorted away, the COP28 Director-General Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi praised her enthusiasm and the audience applauded.
The drafted final deal: The protest occurred amid criticism of a draft text for the final agreement, with opponents expressing disapproval that it did not explicitly tackle the elimination of fossil fuels, a crucial request from both the European Union and susceptible developing nations. There is uncertainty whether the talks, initially set to conclude on Tuesday, will finish on schedule.
Kangujam’s urgent plea: Kangujam shared a statement on X after her protest, noting that she was detained for over 30 minutes. “My only crime - Asking to Phase Out Fossil Fuels, the top cause of climate crisis today. Now they kicked me out of COP28,” she wrote.
Her plea emphasizes the necessity for global collaboration in ending fossil fuel use, highlighting the devastating impact of climate disasters on millions of children. She asks governments to redirect their resources from wars to address hunger, provide education and combat climate change. She stresses the basic rights of every human being, such as clean air, water and a habitable planet.
“Your action today will decide our future tomorrow,” Kangujam wrote. “We are already the victim of climate change. I don’t want my future generations to face the same consequences again. Sacrificing the lives of the millions of innocent children for the failures of our leaders is unacceptable at any cost…After thinking many times, I decided to do this protest. Even my mom tried to stop me but I convinced her that ‘Everything will be alright.’ I am taking the risks of my life because I want to save our Planet and our Future. My voice deserve to be heard by the world. Let's stand together by uniting, instead of dividing.”
CBC
Tue, December 12, 2023 at
Climate activists protest against fossil fuels during the final stages of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), in Dubai on Tuesday. (Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters - image credit)
After negotiators worked through the night, a new tentative deal has been reached at COP28 which could signal the world's desire to move away from fossil fuels over the next few decades in an effort to address climate change.
Representatives from nearly 200 countries will gather in a public meeting later Wednesday morning in Dubai to vote on the proposed deal.
The latest draft of the new text seen contains much stronger language on fossil fuels compared to a previous version.
Specifically, the text calls for a "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science."
The proposal does not call for a fossil fuel phase out, as some countries and environmental leaders were pushing for.
Still, the proposed agreement would be the first time the words "fossil fuel" are included in a UN climate summit deal.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault speaks to reporters in Dubai late-Tuesday before leaving COP28.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault speaks to reporters in Dubai late-Tuesday before leaving COP28. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)
"I feel very encouraged," federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault told reporters before he left the summit late Tuesday. "I would say much more encouraged than I was [when the first draft was released.]"
He said the original text "did not go far enough when it comes to sending the world a signal that we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
Scientists Warn That the Dubai Climate Conference Is Full of Crap
Noor Al-Sibai
Tue, December 12, 2023
For the past two weeks, the world's best and brightest have been meeting in Dubai — under a glittering, color-changing dome built to resemble Islamic geometric art — as the petrostate hosts the United Nations' latest climate change conference.
And experts are calling bull. In interviews with The Guardian, climate scientists and advocates said the "solutions" offered at the COP28 conference, which include such goofiness as a panel on "responsible yachting," are "distractions" at best and "frightening" at worst.
Troublingly, the conference is presided over by Dubai's Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who also runs the United Arab Emirates' national oil company in what seems very much like a massive conflict of interest.
Al Jaber sparked controversy last week when he publicly expressed pessimism about a gradual fossil fuel phase-out and said there was "no science" behind it, which is categorically false given that the vast majority of scientists — not to mention the UN's secretary-general — say that eliminating fossil fuel pollution is absolutely the biggest and most important way to turn back the tide on the worst of what climate change has in store.
Notably, oil companies in both the Middle East and stateside have invested heavily in carbon removal technologies, which are promising enough as a tool in what should be an arsenal to fight back against climate change, but are being touted as a catch-all solution that an increasing number of experts say is a waste.
"It’s frightening because they see this as a new business opportunity, a new way to make money and continue as before," climate researcher Pierre Friedlingstein told The Guardian.
Friedlingstein leads a project called the Global Carbon Budget out of the University of Exeter in England that looks, in part, into the efficacy of the sort of expensive carbon capture and removal projects touted by the oil barons and tech tycoons at COP28. Thus far, the results have been damning, with such technologies removing more than a million times less carbon than is currently being emitted.
"They will scale this up, and if they do it by a factor of 100 in the next 10 to 20 years, that would be amazing, but they won’t scale up by a factor of 1 million," Friedlingstein decried. "There is no alternative to reducing emissions massively. These technologies are a distraction, a way to pretend we are dealing with the issue, but we aren’t."
As The Guardian's reporting cites, a new report by the German non-governmental organization Climate Analytics has warned that an additional 86 billion tons of carbon could be released into the atmosphere if these technologies underperform after further investment, and a separate Oxford study found that it would cost a trillion dollars per year to build them out to scale.
While global leaders "can’t take anything off the table" to solve the climate conundrum, Steve Smith, the executive director of Oxford's Net Zero initiative, said that reducing emissions needs to be paramount.
"There’s not much scope for either/or," Smith told The Guardian. "It’s both/and. This technology isn’t a false solution — there’s no one solution.”
As such big names as Bill Gates and US climate envoy John Kerry continue pushing these persistently expensive fixes without committing to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, so too will climate change worsen — until the global community actually starts moving away from fossil fuels, which have been produced in higher measure than ever in recent years.
"We have housing insulation, we have electric vehicles, we have renewables, we have batteries," Friedlingstein said. "Scaling them up is not trivial, but we don’t need a magical new technology for the first 90 percent of this problem."
More on climate change: Carbon Dioxide Is Becoming More Fearsome, Scientists Find
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