COP28:the transition begins, but with many concessions to the fossil fuel industry

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https://www.valigiablu.it/clima-cop28-dubai-risultati-petrolio-gas/

The phase-out, the gradual abandonment of fossil fuels, was not included in the final text of Global Stocktake (GST). The document on which its greatest expectations were focused COP28 it was approved on the morning of December 13, one day after the work was scheduled to end.

However, fossil fuels unmentionable for oil producing countries e unnamed in the texts of the last three decades of United Nations climate conferences, for the first time appear, although not in the formula that many would have liked:there were almost 130 countries lined up for the phase out, but the resistance of those oil producers did not allow more.

The text invite (calls on, a terminology deemed weak in the jargon of climate diplomacy, there is no urgency) the parts to make one transition that you bring them away from fossil fuels, that it is “fair and orderly”, with decisive action in this “critical decade”.The English term on which the agreement was reached is new, it was not present in the drafts circulated in the previous two weeks of negotiations:transitioning away.

This recognition could be considered historic and marks the beginning of the end of the oil, gas and coal era.However, it is not enough to establish that the energy transition it will be done:to have any hope of limiting global warming to livable levels, it must be done quickly.

The reference to the is therefore important science, to degree and a half and to climate neutrality to achieve by 2050.The objectives of triple renewables, double energy efficiency by 2030 and by the same date the reduction in the production of electricity generated by coal, whose emissions are not abated (unabated).

However, the latter is one of many concessions to the interests ofOil & Gas industry.The text of the GST in fact legitimizes a series of tools which, far from accelerating the transition, have already been used as distractions and false promises who, in fact, already have it delayed.Above all, the capture and seizure of CO2 with which we would like to reduce fossil fuel emissions, but which the director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, he defined a fantasy, if designed for large-scale use.

The text reports that in particular (but not only) it will be used in sectors whose emissions are difficult to reduce (hard-to-abate), therefore heavy industry such as steel, cement, aluminium.However, it is also mentioned hydrogen low emissions, that is, too blue, whose carbon dioxide is absorbed by during the production phase CCS systems (currently not effective).

Then there is an explicit reference to the use of low emission fuels (such as biofuels) and recognizes the importance of transition fuels, translated:The gas, from whose use it will be difficult to free yourself in a short time.There is also a commitment to reduce methane emissions, but it is too generic because no concrete objectives are specified.

Too little, too vague, as is the reference to phase out of subsidies to fossil fuels, but only those considered inefficient:another loophole to continue financing the extraction and sale of oil and gas.

What emerges from the front is also disappointing climate finance, essential to achieve the transition especially in developing countries who need technologies, skills and above all funds that they do not have.The South of the world he goes dissatisfied by COP 28 due to the lack of concrete financial objectives and insufficient recognition of the principle of climate justice, according to which those who have issued more must pay more.The same approval as the bottom loss & damage it had happened too quickly without untying some of the most critical issues.

In summary, the text of the GST, which will serve to draw up the new national plans (NDCs - Nationally Determined Contributions) to be approved at COP 30 in Brazil in 2025, explores a wide range of solutions, ranging from renewables to CCS, includingnuclear energy, thehydrogen and the gas.

There global energy transition you see yours with this document starting point, however much extremely late.However, there are no clear or even binding indications in the document regarding how it will have to unfold and how fast it will have to run, but only volunteers, as the scientist among others points out Johan Rockström.This will have to continue to be discussed in many forums, including and not only at future climate conferences.The next one, the COP 29, it was decided that will be held in Baku, in Azerbaijan, another state whose economy is strongly focused on fossil energy:The gas.

And along the road that leads to Baku we will also continue to discuss climate finance.Thanks to the approval of the text on New Collective Quantified Goal, for example, we will try, with a series of preparatory meetings to be held throughout 2024, to go beyond the objective of 100 billion dollars, promised and not achieved even in 2023, to be allocated to developing countries.Even in this text, however, no new concrete objective is specified.

The one on GST is in fact only one of a kind twenty documents on which the COP28 decision was awaited.The others concerned topics such as adaptation, climate finance, loss & damage, other mitigation initiatives, agriculture and food system, carbon credit markets and their role in counting emissions, relationship between climate crisis and minorities, transition equity.On some, the final decision has not arrived and has been postponed until next year.

However, all of these depended to some extent on what would be included in the text of the GST, true cornerstone of the negotiations.To understand how the approval on December 13th was reached, let's make a brief summary of what has happened in the last few days in Dubai.

Since December 1st, the draft GST that was being worked on mentioned the need for abandon gradually fossil fuels to try to stay under one and a half degrees of global warming.In that of December 5th several options mentioned the phase out.

On December 8th, Reuters had revealed that the presidency ofOpec, the organization of petroleum exporting countries which includes 13 states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had sent a letter to its members, saying it was very concerned about the references to the abandonment of fossil fuels in the official documents under discussion at COP 28.

On 11 December, approximately 24 hours after the end of the conference, the Emirati presidency of Sultan Al Jaber had proposed a new draft from which it was every reference to the phase out.Parties were advised to take actions which could include (could include), among others, a generic reduction in the consumption of fossil fuel production.

The Dutch climate commissioner of the European Union Wopke Hoekstra, with the Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, they had deemed that new version inadmissible.The minister John Silk from the Marshall Islands, which would be entirely submerged by rising sea levels with an increase in global warming beyond the critical threshold, he declared:“It's a death sentence for us.But we will not go quietly to our watery graves.”

“Fossil fuels cause 75% of all greenhouse gases.They are the problem.If we don't get to the root of the climate crisis then everything else is a distraction." he had said the Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate.“Everything else would be impossible.Repairs to losses and damage would be unimaginable.Adaptation would be impossible."

As often happens, the conference seemed aboutthe brink of collapse, of the breakdown of negotiations.Some have begun to believe that a failure to reach an agreement was a better solution than an agreement that conceded too much to the oil companies.On the night between 12 and 13 December it began circulate a draft unofficial that came out of the dichotomy phase-out/phase-down (abandonment or gradual reduction) and which presented the new terminology (at least in diplomatic jargon) of the transition.

The approval arrived on the morning of December 13th, not without recriminations.The agreement on the text appears to have arrived when the representatives of the small islands were not in the negotiating room.Nonetheless, the applause in the plenary session at the moment of ratification was heard, but not by the delegation ofSaudi Arabia.

The veil of hypocrisy has been lifted, the elephant in the room has been seen and pointed out by everyone.It's still a political compromise compared to the much more drastic indications coming from scientific community, but it was difficult to imagine that fossil fuels were identified as a problem to be freed from for the first time COP hosted by a petrostate.But it probably happened precisely for this reason.

In addition to the diplomatic skills of the quasi negotiators 130 countries who were in favor of phase out, and despite the few spaces for protest left to activists, the pressures have arrived, perhaps never so insistent, especially from some press organs.There BBC he had revealed the unclear affairs of the presidency of the Emirates shortly before the start of the conference.In full swing, the Guardian had released a video in which President Al Jaber made denialist remarks about climate science.Reuters published the letter with which OPEC urged its members to oppose the inclusion of phase out in official documents.

Fossil fuels and climate economics:the president of COP28 says false and wrong things

It is also thanks to this constant and growing attention of thepublic opinion than many, including the European Climate Commissioner Hoekstra, believe that COP28 marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.

It took about 30 years, but the United Nations climate conferences managed to get all the countries of the world to agree that the problem is not just greenhouse gas emissions, but the sources that generate them.It will take another three decades to achieve the energy transition.It matters though as it will be done.Everyone's attention must remain high.

*Here is the original article on The Bo Live

Preview image:video frame South China Morning Post via YouTube

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