DUBAI: When the gavel of oil tycoon Sultan Al Jaber came down after painfully prolonged negotiations on the future of the planet, applause rang out loudly for a whole minute in the plenary hall of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28).
The president of this year’s United Nations climate summit beamed brightly. After two weeks, he had his “UAE Consensus”. Job done. But not everyone was in the room to mark what he described as “our historic achievements”.
The regular process of countries addressing the plenary to debate a final text was bypassed. Minutes after the text was declared decided by the sultan, Samoa’s lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, took the floor to express her confusion and regret.
“This process has failed us,” she said.
“We didn’t want to interrupt the standing ovation, but we are confused. It seems you just gavelled the decision and the small island states were not in the room.”
Perhaps their exclusion was an oversight after sleepless nights and a desire to project leadership and success.
Or maybe it was a yet another powerful reminder about the dereliction of these processes to actually hear everyone and provide inclusive solutions that keep the most vulnerable hopeful about their future in a fast-heating world.The agreement for the first time included wording about fossil fuels – “30 years to get to the beginning of the end for fossil fuels”, the EU noted.
Indeed, it is a significant inclusion that opponents had fought against for years.
How and why and when the oil, gas and coal industries will stop polluting the planet was not decided. There was no declared “phase out” or “phase down”.
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WHAT USE DOES AN AGREEMENT SERVE?
Colombia’s environment minister, in her address to the plenary, called it a battle between “fossil capital and life”. Which side is truly winning remains to be seen.
This was undoubtedly a fossil fuel COP. From its leader to the thousands of oil lobbyists present to the generating source of the electricity and water that flowed through the Dubai conference halls and delegate hotelsAnd in the end, nations like the United States, India, China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE itself will walk away satisfied that this multilateral process – and all of these fiercely disputed individual words and commas in the text – will not compel them to change their respective courses.
Does producing a supposed “strong document”, as US Secretary of State John Kerry described, through the COP system actually matter?
If no one is totally satisfied with a text that is not legally binding and will be enveloped in a year’s time by the next version, what use does it serve?
Because the text is meant to be unanimous, single nations can hold the entire outcome hostage, so loopholes and ambiguous language remain.
Former US vice president Al Gore raised the idea of changing voting rules at COPs from a consensus to a super majority, diluting the power of naysayers.
“We have to change this process. It’s just not fit for purpose,” he said. He will lead an effort to make that change ahead of COP29.
THE REAL WORK GOES BEYOND A CLIMATE SUMMIT
Despite agreements, there were undoubted breakthroughs in Dubai. In all, COP28 mobilised more than US$85 billion in funding for climate action.
Money started to flow into an operationalised loss and damage fund for nations most exposed to the climate crisis. Nations agreed to triple the global capacity of renewable energy sources and to cut dangerous methane emissions.
Still, the only way to move the needle, to keep the dream alive of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will come via the real meaningful actions taken away from these halls.
The COP process is an annual exercise, going on nearly 30 years. Politicians describe it as imperfect, but the best system the world has.As an event, it is growing and warping, growing more heads, like a mythical hydra.
The Dubai edition was the biggest yet. About 100,000 delegates passed through the gates, more than double the number of attendees at COP27 in Egypt, and not including an expected similar number of public attendees in the adjoining Green Zone. As reference, only about 11,300 attended COP23 in Germany in 2017.
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A SPRAWLING TRAVELLING EXPO
The expo site in Dubai was an extraordinary facility that tested the walking shoes and endurance of everyone there.
Like a travelling climate expo, it welcomed any and all. The negotiations felt like an afterthought at times, in the shadow of countless forums, speaker events, technology showcases and shiny national pavilions.
This might have been peak COP, an unsustainably large and exhausting exercise.
Next, it will move to Azerbaijan. And so will follow the criticism that fossil-fuel producing nations should not be setting the climate agenda, as the Baku government will soon do when it takes over from the UAE.A country whose foreign exports are 95 per cent composed of natural gas and oil will find itself wedged within a political and ideological battle, ripe for criticism from some, and into the embrace of others.
In 12 months’ time, it seems inevitable that the same debates over a final, agreed, effective text will be taking place. The 1.5 degree “North Star”, as described by Sultan Al Jaber, might still guide us, but climate-vulnerable nations will be even more desperate to keep it within sight.
Accelerating towards a just transition, zero-emissions economies, better protections of nature and ecosystems and finding solutions to adapt to inevitable disasters that will unfold in the years to come will be a shared challenge, the world over.Fighting over words just doesn’t seem like the way to make it happen.
Jack Board is CNA’s climate change correspondent.
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