COP28 winding down tomorrow

A Global Stocktake is happening, more countries are signing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

COP28, the big international climate meeting held by the United Nations each year, is still underway in Dubai. The conference wraps up this coming Tuesday, and while a lot has already happened, most of the negotiations don’t conclude until the eleventh hour.

On Friday, negotiators released the latest draft of the Global Stocktake agreement they’re hammering out at COP28. A “global stocktake” is a report card on where things stand eight years after the Paris Agreement and where countries go from here. More than 80 countries, including the U.S. and the European Union, are calling for fossil fuels to be phased out completely. 
 
The latest draft calls on countries to “take further action in this critical decade towards” either: 

1) “A phase out of fossil fuels in line with best available science," 

2) ”Phasing out of fossil fuels in line with best available science, the IPCC’s 1.5 pathways and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement,” 

3) “A phase-out of unabated fossil fuels recognizing the need for a peak in their consumption in this decade and underlining the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050,” 

4) “Phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net-zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century,” 

or 5) leaving out language on the future use of fossil fuels.
 
As I talk about here, “unabated” is what I refer to as a weasel word: it allows fossil fuel producers to weasel out of reductions by promising to capture their carbon at some time in the future (and when they get to that time, they’ll most likely claim it was too expensive/too hard to do what they promised). So as you can imagine, the precise language to be included on future fossil fuel use is the most contentious issue at COP28 right now. And make no mistake, it is a huge fight.
 
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais has written a letter urging members to refuse language on phasing out fossil fuels, writing “It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences.” And on Saturday, Russia and Saudi Arabia - two major OPEC members - insisted the language focus on “reducing climate pollution,” not fossil fuel use, according to Reuters. 
 
In response, I’m one of 1,400 scientific, business, finance, indigenous, youth, and faith leaders who have signed a letter to the COP28 president calling for a rapid response to the Stocktake. “Later is too late,” we told him, urging him to ensure fossil fuel phase-out trajectories are put in place now.

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From Katharine Hayhoe's weekly newsletter "Talking Climate News."

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There are a lot of good things going on at the conference, too. Early on, Colombia - a leading producer of fossil fuels in South America – and Samoa became the tenth and eleventh countries to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. This treaty – the brainchild of long-time Canadian climate advocate Tzeporah Berman – is an amazing common-sense concept that has also been endorsed by faith and youth leaders, a host of cities, and over 3,000 scientists including me. Want to know more? Read this interview Tzeporah did with Inside Climate News this week.
 
There have also been a slew of other positive announcements, including Canada putting a cap on emissions from our oil and gas sector requiring companies to cut emissions 38% before 2030; a global commitment from 134 world leaders to account for emissions from food and land use and invest in resilient and sustainable agriculture; another 118 countries committing to triple their renewable energy investment and double investments in efficiency (yay!); and a group of the world’s biggest philanthropies promising $250 million to ocean resilience and ocean-based climate solutions.

And finally, as the New York Times put it, at COP28 this year was already “Big Oil vs. Science” with the host firmly on the side of the former. Will next year be any better? Thanks to Russia vetoing the conference being held in any country that opposed its invasion of Ukraine, it’s likely that Azerbaijan will be chosen to host next year’s COP29 gathering. That would make it the third big oil and gas producer in a row to host the conference.

And HERE is the link to Climate Progress in Charts from the Christian Science Monitor

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Today's quote:

Through me course wide rivers and in me rise tall mountains. And beyond the thickets of my agitation and confusion there stretch the wide plains of my peace and surrender. All landscapes are within me. And there is room for everything.

ETTY HILLESUM This is the fifth night of hanukkah