The COP 28 international climate summit continued in Dubai this past week and goes on until December 12, 2023. The core question is whether the summit will result in a clear commitment to end global reliance on fossil fuels or not.
DUBAI, Dec 5 (Reuters) – A second draft of what could be the final agreement from the COP28 U.N. climate summit shows negotiators are considering calling for an “orderly and just” phase out of fossil fuels….The negotiations are part of the “global stock take” process, in which nearly 200 nations are trying to agree on plans to curb rising global temperatures.
Phase OUT or Phase Down?
(The New York Times) – Will the talks call for a phaseout of fossil fuels?…The president of the event is under fire for having suggested that it is not necessary to phase out oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet…And Saudi Arabia has said it opposes any agreement that calls for an end to fossil fuels — significant because, under U.N. rules, any single country can scuttle a deal. At the same time, scientists, activists and dozens of world leaders are growing more adamant in their calls for a rapid reduction in oil, gas and coal, arguing that, without a pivot away from fossil fuels, the planet is destined for catastrophe.
(Financial Times) – COP28 in brief: Several big banks and corporations publicly backed the Energy Transition Accelerator, a US-led scheme to fund developing nations’ move away from polluting energy sources. The three largest certification bodies for carbon credits announced a collaboration aimed at strengthening standards in the controversial market.
DUBAI, Dec 5 (Reuters) – U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday launched an international engagement plan to boost nuclear fusion, saying the emissions-free technology could become a vital tool in the fight against climate change. Kerry said the plan involved 35 nations and would focus on research and development, supply chain issues, and regulation, and safety. Fusion, which powers the sun and other stars to generate electricity, can be replicated on Earth with heat and pressure using lasers or magnets to smash two light atoms into a denser one, releasing large amounts of energy. The nascent technology could have an important advantage over today’s nuclear fission plants by producing huge amounts of unlimited power without long-lasting radioactive waste. But there are big hurdles to fusion’s producing commercial electricity. For one, scientists have so far only achieved scattered instances where fusion experiments produce more energy than is required to make them happen.
(The Hill) – “They are abusing the public’s trust by naming the CEO of one of the largest and least responsible oil companies in the world as head of the COP,” (Former Vice President Al Gore) told Reuters in an interview at the conference in Dubai…he reiterated the need to end the use of fossil fuels without carbon capture technology, which is a concept where captured carbon dioxide is transported and stored deep underground. “The current state of the technology for carbon capture and direct air capture is a research project,” Gore said. “There’s been no cost reduction for 50 years and there is a pretense on the part of the fossil fuel companies that it is a readily available, economically viable technology.”
(FORTUNE) – A nuclear reactor company cofounded by Bill Gates signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates to explore building advanced reactors in the Gulf country. On Monday, TerraPower and the UAE’s state-owned nuclear company Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding to collaborate on developing new nuclear power plants that would combat climate change. The preliminary deal comes as nuclear power increasingly takes center stage at the United Nations’s COP28 conference in Dubai, which started last week.
(Reuters) – The United States, Canada and Kenya were among 63 countries to join a pledge on Tuesday to deeply cut cooling-related emissions at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai. The Global Cooling Pledge marks the world’s first collective focus on climate-warming emissions from cooling, which includes refrigeration for food and medicine and air conditioning. It commits countries to reduce by 2050 their cooling-related emissions by at least 68% compared to 2022 levels, along with a suite of other targets including establishing minimum energy performance standards by 2030.
Flooded with Lobbyists
(MSNBC) – A report published Tuesday by the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition found that at least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend the two-week long summit….Campaigners say the number of fossil fuel lobbyists attending the talks is “beyond justification” and signals that polluting industries are seeking to advance a fossil fuel agenda at the expense of frontline communities…Others, however, including former U.S. energy secretary Ernest Moniz, say that Big Oil’s participation at COP28 should be welcomed.
(The Guardian) – In a historic move, a loss and damage fund was agreed at the opening plenary of the first day of the Cop28 summit – something the global south has been demanding for decades…But there is a huge caveat to the agreed deal, which already contained various compromises. The $700m (£557m) so far pledged by wealthy nations most responsible for the climate emergency covers less than 0.2% of what is needed every year. Estimates for the annual cost of the damage have varied from $100bn-$580bn.
(The New York Times) – John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Wednesday that the United States supported a phaseout of fossil fuels, his clearest statement yet on America’s position on one of the most intractable issues under debate at the United Nations climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mr. Kerry said that “largely” ending the burning of coal, gas and oil was required to limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, which many scientists say is necessary to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The planet has already warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius. “We’ve got to do what the science tells us to do, and the science has been clear,” Mr. Kerry told reporters gathered at a news conference at the summit.
