COP28: A Brief Review

By Nicholas Stover

The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), colloquially referred to as the COP Summit, recently concluded its 28^th congregation. Official tallies from the UNFCCC had around 85,000 delegates in attendance, with some estimates as high as 100,000. I had the great fortune of being a virtual delegate among the many thousands. That fortune allowed me to observe many important people in action, from leaders of nations and prominent thought leaders to academics, and students. Over the course of 13 days, I attended more than 30 sessions. One observation I noted was the controversial nature of the conference. How does an entire planet attempt to coordinate climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts? Importantly, how does an entire planet do so with equity in mind?

Numerous sessions offered a peek into a variety of topics from policy proposals to high level coordination efforts of carbon reduction in the public and private sectors, to more specific projects in progress around the world. Arguably most prominent in press coverage was the compromise agreement to transition away from fossil fuel use, rather than a phase-down or phase-out of the energy source. This is one of the more disappointing outcomes from the negotiations given an urgency for a need to halt the use of hydrocarbons. The importance of choice in language cannot be overstated in negotiations. Irrespective of whether use of fossil fuels should be transitioned away from, phased-down, or phased-out, what was most glaring was the lack of a timeline in halting their use.

While this was a disappointing result, some positive results came from the forum. Chief among them, the summit saw concrete progress of a loss and damage fund, known as the Santiago Network. This fund provides financial support to countries impacted by climate change. This network was first established in 2019 at COP25 but was effectively stalled until COP28. The reason for this was lack of funding and administrative capacity, both of which have since been remedied. Specifically, regarding funding, multiple nations have supplied $700 million for technical assistance and other aspects related to the network. Sadly, the United States is among the smallest contributors to the fund with a paltry $17.5 million. What is important to understand is this fund not only misses the mark in terms of overall funding needed at a global level, but the US, which is historically one of the worst polluters, is woefully short of contributing equitably to repairing the damage the country has caused.

Thinking, perhaps, about the elephant in the room, the presence of oil companies at this year’s summit is a multifold increase over years past. Justification of their presence is made through the need to have partnerships in addressing the transition away from polluting energy sources. I am not at all convinced of this need. Given the revelation of ExxonMobil withholding research about impacts of climate change since at least the 1970s, the damage of trust is profound. What I am convinced of is the dominance of the profit motive, at the very least in the case of ExxonMobil. Even as knowledge of the detrimental impacts of pollution because of oil production became more widespread, the industry continued and continues to hamper progress towards climate goals.

The leader of COP28, Sultan Al Jabar, is the head of an oil company in Dubai and has made highly questionable comments about climate change and the need for the phase-out of fossil fuels. Specifically, he said there was “no science indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” (Dickie, 2023). This runs directly counter to common knowledge that reducing or eliminating fossil fuel use would impact outcomes of warming on this planet. It does represent a clear conflict of interest on Al Jabbar’s part and, arguably, on the part of all other organizations related to the oil industry.

The unfortunate reality here is that the negative results of some of the most consequential parts of the summit grotesquely overshadow the positive work done by others. Particularly, the summit did much to illustrate which countries are most involved in combatting climate change, and which are the least. It also showed that the process of coordination around the world on these issues is very much a messy one, and because of this, the most vulnerable populations stand to suffer the most. Next year’s summit is going to be held in Azerbaijan, an authoritarian petrostate. The work, such as It is, must be continued, and we must have courage to do the right things for the sake of everyone, and not just the very few.

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Citations

Dickie, G. (2023, December 4). COP28 president denies he doesn’t respect climate science. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/cop28-president-denies-he-doesnt-respect-climate-science-2023-12-04/

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Edited by Kathryn Cunningham

Featured image courtesy of Medium