COP28: The Final Text
A day before the COP28 climate talks concluded, the draft text of its final agreement was so weakened and nibbled away at by the 2,400+ fossil fuel lobbyists and OPEC members that we at The Borrowed Earth Project were wondering if it would be better to walk away than to sign up to a consensus that locked out real progress to reflect the demands of climate science. Similar doubts were shared by enough of the actual delegations to make the collapse of the talks a real possibility.
After a major push back led by the Alliance of Small Island States ‘AOSIS’, the EU, US and others, and an all night negotiating marathon led by the energetic and efficient UAE Presidency, an imperfect but very much improved final text was delivered and gavelled through at speed. This article considers what was agreed in this final text, but does not focus on the many other significant agreements and announcements at the COP28 climate talks which we will aim to cover in later articles.
World Leaders at the start of COP28 - Creative Commons
The Global Stocktake
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015 established a mechanism for a Global Stocktake to take place every 5 years. Essentially this reviews the state of climate science, prepares a technical assessment of it, and puts the question of a political response to it to the parties representing the world’s nations at the Conference of Parties.
The final agreement at COP28, the ‘UAE Consensus’, therefore takes the form of the overall response of 198 parties present at the COP28 conference to the climate science of the Global Stocktake mandated by the Paris Agreement. In important ways, this influences its approach.
International response to the consensus of climate science
In direct response to unequivocal climate science, the text of the UAE Consensus is strong and clear. For example, the text -
“3. Reaffirms the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
4. Underscores that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C;
5. Expresses serious concern that 2023 is set to be the warmest year on record and that impacts from climate change are rapidly accelerating, and emphasizes the need for urgent action and support to keep the 1.5 °C goal within reach and to address the climate crisis in this critical decade;”
The specific reaffirmation of Paris Agreement targets will be important to the preparation of individual countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs, which should be consistent with the overall consensus reflected in this document. A further example of the reaffirmation of the scientific consensus in the Agreement states that it -
A nationally determined contribution (NDC) is a non-binding national plan highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.
Read more here.
“15. Notes with alarm and serious concern the following findings of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
(a) That human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming of about 1.1 °C;
(b) That human-caused climate change impacts are already being felt in every region across the globe, with those who have contributed the least to climate change being most vulnerable to the impacts, and, together with losses and damages, will increase with every increment of warming;
(c) That most observed adaptation responses are fragmented, incremental, sector-specific and unequally distributed across regions, and that, despite the progress made, significant adaptation gaps still exist across…”
It is significant that 198 countries in the world are able to re-affirm the pressing need for Paris Agreement climate targets, and that they are able to articulate and share the same assessment of the urgency of action to address climate change. The logic of that it that their scientific understanding should be reflected in their national responses and national plans.
Political actions in response: Mitigation
What, then, were the parties able to agree to do about these scientific findings? This is where much of the debate centred in the closing stages of the COP28 climate talks, with ‘high ambition’ countries and those most affected by immediate climate change impacts calling for an agreed ‘phase out’ or ‘phase down’ of fossil fuels, while significant fossil fuel producers and OPEC and its lobbyists resisted that. The key part of the UAE Consensus states that it -
“27. Also recognizes that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C with no or limited overshoot requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43 percent by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050;
28. Further recognizes the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5 °C pathways and calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches:
(a) Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030;
(b) Accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power;
(c) Accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century;
(d) Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science;
(e) Accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilization and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production;
(f) Accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030;
(g) Accelerating the reduction of emissions from road transport on a range of pathways, including through development of infrastructure and rapid deployment of zero-and low-emission vehicles;
(h) Phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible;”
Here, then, is the landmark, first ever, reference in a UN document to “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in conjunction with the aim of net zero, as well as calling on parties to contribute towards tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.
It is not legally binding, and there are plenty of loopholes and places to retreat to for countries that are so minded. Parties are ‘called on to contribute’; they must take account of the Paris Agreement, but also are allowed to reflect their different national circumstances; there is still envisaged to be a transition role for gas.
This is probably more than many expected from a conference held in a major oil and gas producing state, and chaired by the CEO of one of the world’s largest oil producing companies. It is less, in terms of concrete actions by fixed dates than many of the most affected states such as Small Islands States at risk of being submerged by sea level rise were demanding.
It does represent a formal expression of the world acknowledging that it needs to change course away from the principal cause of climate change and global warming: it does not, yet, set the speed of the course correction that reflects the full urgency of the science on climate change, and climate impacts.
Adaptation
Part B of the Consensus, on Adaptation, contains very general wording and may reflect the fact that, to the frustration of some developing countries, the main focus of the intensive negotiations was once again principally on what could, or could not, be agreed on Mitigation.
Finance
The scale of the shortfall in climate finance was highlighted by these paragraphs from the Consensus text –
“67. Highlights the growing gap between the needs of developing country Parties, in particular those due to the increasing impacts of climate change compounded by difficult macroeconomic circumstances, and the support provided and mobilized for their efforts to implement their nationally determined contributions, highlighting that such needs are currently estimated at USD 5.8–5.9 trillion for the pre-2030 period;
68. Also highlights that the adaptation finance needs of developing countries are estimated at USD 215–387 billion annually up until 2030, and that about USD 4.3 trillion per year needs to be invested in clean energy up until 2030, increasing thereafter to USD 5 trillion per year up until 2050, to be able to reach net zero emissions by 2050;”
Once again, some developing countries were disappointed or frustrated that there was less focus on these overall financial shortfalls, despite some notable progress with specific initiatives, particularly those supported by individual countries such as the UAE itself.
Loss and Damage
Loss and Damage, at section D of the text, represented an early and substantial success for the UAE Presidency. The issued had soured the negotiating atmosphere at the COP27 talks in Egypt, with many of the countries most affected by climate change demanding that there should be a Fund for addressing the urgent impacts on them of climate change generally caused by developed countries and their industry. The UAE Presidency took this as the leading agenda item for Day 1 of the COP28 conference, put in $100 million of their own, and won pledges of $792 million from other parties, thereby making the Loss and Damage Fund operational. It was a timely and welcome reminder that change can happen, and took delegates by surprise.
* * *
These Conferences of the Parties are important, because we have not yet devised a more effective alternative.
They can represent incremental change, like waves moving slowly up a beach. But each time the initiative then passes back to national governments, politicians, national actors, and non state actors from cities to financial bodies to engineers and youth activists.
For example, if 198 countries are now committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels, what impact will that have upon continued investment in fossil fuels, and the likelihood of such investments becoming stranded assets? What is the justification of continued fossil fuel subsidies? Can this affirmation of the energy transition generate new engineering innovation and investment in renewables and energy storage? What influence should it have on Nationally Determined Contributions? If fossil fuel companies and their financiers and governments can plainly see the direction of travel, will they become more exposed to climate litigation if they act in defiance of this world consensus? In all of the elections due to take place in 2024 are there not opportunities to demand political policies and politicians who respond effectively to climate change?
After each of the COPs both the delegates, and the issues, come home.
As the President of COP28, H.E. Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber himself put it:
“An Agreement is only as good as its implementation. This historic consensus is only the beginning of the road.”
Dr Sultan Al Jaber - Creative Commons
Further Reading
Read the full global stocktake decision text here.
Consider the UAE’s response to the Agreement and to other achievements at the COP, for example on Loss and Damage, reduction of methane emissions, food and farming, the ALTERRA private finance vehicle and other areas (which we will aim to report on further in later articles).
Climate Home News: a roundup of world reactions to the COP28 text