COP28: Half-empty or Half- full? Unequal and ineffectual either way

While most of the EcoGather team kept its full focus on the meaningful responses to collapse during the past two weeks, Dr. Heather Short did double duty, keeping one eye on the happenings in Dubai... We're grateful that she’s sharing a candid post-conference report.

The headlines this morning read things like “Cop28 landmark deal agreed to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels” and “COP28: Landmark summit takes direct aim at fossil fuels,” which of course are rooted in a grain of truth, but are nowhere near a holistic summary of the result of this latest UN summit to stop climate breakdown. Both of these headlines are followed by sentences beginning with “But critics [or small island states, as if they’re the only ones worried about a global failure to meaningfully address the climate crisis] say.…”. Framing the COP28 meeting and its outcome in a binary fashion like this, with an emphasis on the positive, oversimplifies the extremely complicated task of getting the world’s countries to agree on how to address a shared existential threat, but worse, it implies that the COP process is an equal playing field. It is anything but.

The conference did not start out well. Most readers here already know that the COP28 was hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a petro-state, and the president was Sultan Al Jaber, who is also CEO of the UAE’s state oil company. In a pre-COP meeting of a She Changes Climate event, when asked by the former President of Ireland, and Chair of the Elders, Mary Robinson, if he supported the phase out of fossil fuels, Al Jaber (now famously) replied: 

“I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” and when Robinson challenged him further, he replied “You’re reading your own media, which is biased and wrong. I am telling you I am the man in charge.”

Gotta love climate science denial mixed with growth capitalism and misogyny. I need a votive candle with Mary Robinson on it, to go next to my RBG one. Though women make up 51% of the global population and are more likely to experience serious impacts from climate breakdown, they only represent 10% of world leaders and 38% of the delegates at COP28., which is an improvement over previous years. It isn’t just about striving for equity though; studies consistently show that when women are included in decision-making processes, the outcomes are more sustainable and beneficial for all.

The same is true for global southerners and the majority of BIPOC delegates, who are commonly not even offered a seat at the table (unless you own an oil company), while a record number of billionaires (34), and fossil fuel (>2400) and meat industry and agribusiness lobbyists (340) are given unprecedented access to higher levels of negotiations. A moving testimony from Jo Sikulu, an attendee from Pacific Islands 350.org, in the final hours of negotiation conveys the distress of those who are already experiencing climate breakdown:

“We didn't come here to sign our death sentences and the text in its current state is that. And we know COP is not yet over. We know that leaders and our negotiators are still in there, holding the line and they're still fighting." 

In the end, now that the Sultan has thrown down his manly gavel, the “landmark agreement” favors – surprise – oil companies and business-as-usual. The one victory that optimistic folks are claiming is that the agreement does include the call to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Considering that the scientific consensus has been clear for well over 30 years that fossil fuels are driving the climate crisis and that we need to stop burning them ASAP, this ‘victory’ is similar to a person with stage 3 lung cancer finally admitting that they should think about quitting smoking. It is greenwashing of the highest order. When several climate scientists were asked to sum up the new COP28 agreement, they said things like:

“Cop28 is the fossil fuel industry’s dream outcome, because it looks like progress,
but it isn’t.”

And

“The science is perfectly clear. Cop28, by not making a clear declaration to STOP fossil fuel burning is a tragedy for the planet and our future. The world is heating faster and more powerfully than the COP response to deal with it.”

And my favorite:

“The time for talking is over. Delaying change further is indefensible. Pretending that reducing emissions by 2050 is enough ignores the dangerous, life-threatening consequences of our anthropogenic heating of the planet.”

But even this watered-down “transition” language was very hard to accomplish. Early drafts of the agreement had included the phrase “phase-out of fossil fuels”, which of course the petro-states (including the USA) objected to and demanded it be removed. The European Union then actually threatened to walk out if it was removed. Former US Vice President Al Gore said at one point that the talks were on the verge of “complete failure.” Romain Ioualalen, of Oil Change International, delivered a tense speech at this stage:

"The draft we saw yesterday does not reflect science. It doesn't. It does not reflect the demands from the entire global climate movement and global justice movement for a full and funded and fair phaseout of fossil fuels."

So if you are a delegate from most places in the world, or someone who has made climate negotiations their life’s work, getting the phrase “transition away from fossil fuels” in the COP28 agreement would feel like an accomplishment, and I don’t want to detract from those people’s sense of relief, however small or fleeting it may be – this is really hard work. Catherine Abreu, founder & Executive director of Destination Zero wrote of the COP28 final agreement:

“The world has declared the end of the fossil fuel era at COP28.This is an extraordinary turning point for these negotiations that has come far later than it needed to. Policy makers and investors take note: you will be held to this decision. No loopholes, no delay.”

But the climate system doesn’t care how hard well-meaning (or not) global leaders have worked to finally admit the obvious. Climate breakdown isn’t going to wait. And there are plenty of loopholes and stagnation in the final document – the text on the coal industry “phase down” instead of “phase out” remains unchanged from COP26 – for example. And nothing in the agreement, or ANY of the COP agreements, is legally binding. That’s right, there is absolutely no legal obligation for any country to follow through with their pledges. It’s all promises, and if the Paris climate accord of 2015 is any indication, most of those promises are empty. Wealthy nations (and individuals) have emitted more CO2 in the past 30 years, since the first IPCC report was published, than in all previous 10,000 years of human activity, combined.

So the verdict on the outcome of COP28 depends a lot on framing- whether you are the sort of person who sees the glass half empty or half full. A lot of that framing will depend on your own positionality in the world. Personally, as a scientist who trusts scientific consensus, I still feel culpable, like we somehow haven’t communicated the science and the urgency with which we need to act on it clearly enough. But I know that the motivation for the collective inaction and dithering of my and older generations is much more complicated than that. I also know that there are other, more effective ways to push for meaningful change, and that us adults in privileged countries must urgently move out of our comfort zones for the sake of those coming behind us – and they are paying attention. I’ll end with a quote from Tzeporah Berman, International program director of Stand.Earth, and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, who attended COP28:

“If climate justice youth leaders who have literally grown up in these halls and have more fluency in language, provisions and policy than many negotiators, are sobbing at the end of the climate talks then no, it is not a “historic consensus”. This breaks my heart. At the very least our job should be to give them the freedom to go to school, to play instruments, to play sports, to date and hang out. But no. Once again the climate negotiations have shown them that their organizing is critical to build power against vested interests. Please don’t just admire these youth movements and applaud their efforts. Dust off your placards and get into the streets. Don’t let our children be alone carrying the burden we created.”

Cartoon by first dog on the moon