COP 28 refers to the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAR), from 30 November until 12 December 2023. COP28’s stated aim is to address the climate crisis by agreeing on ways to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
More than 70,000 diplomats, politicians, business leaders and environmental advocates from nearly 200 countries are in attendance. President Biden, mired in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, sent his Vice President Kamala Harris in his place, which climate activists criticized.
There is reason for skepticism about the conference’s effectiveness, with oil rich UAR as host and oil CEO Sultan Al Jaber as COP28 President, saying he considered the oil and gas industry a partner that can “lead the way” in the energy transition.
Before the Conference
Before the conference began, there was promising news of an agreement between the U.S. and China. But there was also discouraging news about other deal-making.
(Inside Climate News) – New climate talks between the United States and China could set an encouraging signal for the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate summit, but only if the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters follow up on their words with actions. If the two countries don’t make big emissions cuts soon, the world is likely to quickly heat well beyond the 1.5 degree Celsius goal of the Paris Agreement, new research shows.
(The Guardian) – The host of the UN Cop28 summit, the United Arab Emirates, planned to use climate meetings with other countries to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies, according to leaked documents.
Here’s a brief roundup of news coming out of COP28.
(CNN) – Global delegates at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai formally adopted a damage fund that was decades in the making, and several countries pledged millions of dollars to it to help nations hit hardest by the climate crisis – an early success on the first day of talks that allows more time to discuss the thorny issues around slashing fossil fuels.
(Quotations excerpted from The New York Times) – The U.K.’s King Charles III addressed the summit, saying, “We are taking the natural world outside balanced norms and limits, and into dangerous uncharted territory. Our choice now is a starker and darker one: How dangerous are we actually prepared to make our world? The dangers are no longer distant risks,” he added. “Surely, real action is required to stem the growing toll of its most vulnerable victims.” Charles concluded, “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.”
Fire Fighters Battle Increasing Forest Fires Around the World.
WHO Image by Quarrie Photography.
(Reuters) – U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders at the COP28 climate summit to plan for a future without fossil fuels, saying there was no other way to curb global warming. Speaking a day after COP28 president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber proposed embracing the continued use of fossil fuels, Guterres said: “We cannot save a burning planet with a fire hose of fossil fuels. The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate,” he said. The competing visions summed up the most divisive issue facing world leaders at this year’s U.N. climate summit in the oil-producing United Arab Emirates.
“The earth does not belong to us.
U.K.’s King Charles III
We belong to the earth.”
(BBC) – World leaders have for the first time promised to tackle the huge responsibility that food and agriculture have in climate change. More than 130 countries signed up to a declaration about food, on the second day of the UN climate summit COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Food contributes a third of the warming gases increasing global temperatures. The US, China, the EU and the UK – some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita from food – signed up.
The COP28 summit continues until December 12.
