The UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, COP28, draws to a close, but after a number of initial, important announcements that set a strong momentum, will it deliver on what is, admittedly, the principal swinger theme – fossil fuels phase-out?
The proverbial elephant has been in the room for years, if not decades. Science tells us: rapidly phasing out fossil fuels is easily the one, single action humankind can take, that would have the widest impact on abating climate change. In short, stopping burning fossil fuels is our only chance to keep the planet a livable place.
Public, private and citizens-led initiatives to tackle facets of the proteiform challenge climate change poses have grown exponentially. The fantastic progress made on renewable energy, amongst many others, definitely keeps hope alive.
Sadly, those impacts in the race against the clock to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and stay within the planetary boundaries are dwarfed by what phasing out fossil fuels rapidly would achieve.
To be sure, phasing out is far easier said than done, several books could be written about how dependent our societies are on fossil fuels, which tough trade-offs would be required to wean ourselves off them, and how geopolitical imperatives distort any meaningful conversation on that subject. There are myriads of reasons why drilling, mining and burning should continue until those fossil fuels are exhausted - those reasons are usually labelled “pragmatic”, “real-life” or “reasonable”… just ask any of the 2500+ fossil fuels lobbyists who walked the long distances within COP28.
However, the Stone Age didn’t end because humankind ran out of stones, as the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres once said. It ended because far better tools and techniques presented enhanced alternatives for survival.
At this stage of the COP28, at least one thing is now clear: the long game of obstruction, the tactics of grinding texts on fossil fuels down to the least impactful words possible on COP declarations, the two-face PR blitzes are giving way to much clearer battle lines.
The controversies have kept abounding, and in fact, accelerated. The COP28 President, Sultan Al-Jaber, is also the Minister of Industry of the UAE, and the head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the Emirati national petroleum company. Some have compared this to having a congress on the fight against lung cancer presided by a tobacco executive or even more in the extreme, having an arsonist in charge of the fire station. Mr. Al-Jaber has strongly denied being partial in his COP President role.
The influence of high-profile international consultancy firms to the COP28 presidency, also advising petroleum companies was surfaced. More recently, the BBC published leaked information pointing to the COP presidency (i.e. Adnoc) intending to take advantage of the COP to pursue oil deals with high-level participants (this was denied by the presidency).
The latest has been the memorandum from the head of OPEC to all its member-states, requesting them to proactively refuse any text that may point to phasing out or down fossil fuels (the cause), and continue to promote texts about emissions (the consequence) instead.
And yet… this COP28 is the first one in three decades in which fossil fuels are frontally discussed, as causes of global warming. And yet… those controversies and scandals have shed a crude light on those decades of obfuscation, making it increasingly unsustainable. We now have much sharper battle lines delineated, higher difficulties for some large petro-states and coal, oil and gas companies to keep playing on both sides of the trench, and maybe, just maybe, a turning point in a couple of days as COP28, with the fossil fuels phase-out on the final declaration despite all the headwinds.
The elephant has not left the room yet, but the flashlights are squarely on its eyes now.
While the talks are officially scheduled to end on Tuesday 12 December, they are likely to overrun as nations are in strong disagreement over the latest draft decision.
A first draft text published on Saturday confirmed that one option for the outcome of the talks was a "phase-out of fossil fuels in line with best available science". On Monday however, another draft was published that deleted mentions of "phase out". Instead, it said nations should "reduce consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner". To many, this is a huge step back in ambition and would leave the world with a very weak and vague, non-binding outcome of COP28.
In the words of Al Gore late on Monday: “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure. The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word. It is even worse than many had feared. It is ‘Of the Petrostates, By the Petrostates and For the Petrostates.’ It is deeply offensive”.
Climate Clock, COP28. Photo: 10 Billion Solutions/Rosa Castañeda
ARTICLE AUTHORSHIP: 10 Billion Solutions – Climate & Sustainability Communications You are invited to use and reproduce this article published under Creative Commons license CC BY. This license allows you to reuse the work, but credit must be provided in all cases to 10 Billion Solutions.
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