DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Climate talks that just concluded in Dubai have reached the core of compromise and found a common language that nearly 200 countries have agreed to, sometimes reluctantly.
For the first time after nearly three decades of such talks, the final agreement stated that fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) were the cause of climate change and that the world should “move away” from them. But he did not use the words “phase out”, which is sought by advocates and more than 100 countries who argue it would give the world a sharper direction to move quickly towards renewable energies that do not produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
For a deal so mired in compromise, experts’ opinions on it were as polarizing as it gets, including the impact it could have in the years to come.
The Associated Press asked 23 different delegates, analysts, scientists and activists where they would rank COP28 among all climate conferences. More than half said COP28 was the most important climate talks ever. However, a smaller but still large portion of people rated it as terrible. Some, who described this as the most important problem, even underlined what they described as the biggest problem.
13 of 23 said they would put what COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber called the UAE Consensus in their top five among negotiations and agreements. Some have called it the most important meeting since the 2015 Paris talks, which set specific targets for limiting temperature increases and were a near-unanimous choice for the most meaningful climate meeting.
The two-week negotiations at COP28 also introduced a new compensation fund for countries hit hard by the effects of climate change, such as hurricanes, floods and droughts. The so-called loss and damage fund held hostages of approximately $800 million during the negotiations. Nations also agreed to triple the use of renewable fuels, double energy efficiency, and adopted stronger language and commitments to help poor nations adapt to extreme weather conditions worsened by climate change.
The leaders, mostly non-scientists, said Dubai was keeping alive the world’s faint and fading hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, the goal adopted in Paris. The world has already warmed by 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Many scientific calculations looking at policies and commitments predict warming of at least 2.5 to about 3 degrees (4.3 to about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit); This can lead to more extremes and make it harder for people to adapt.
Negotiators, who held private closed-door meetings with Al Jaber late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning before the deal was reached, were particularly proud of the word historic, frequently using it in public statements. When asked about the place of COP28 in this date, they did not give up on the message.
“I think this ranks very high,” said Zambia’s Green Economy and Environment Minister Collins Nzovu, who led his country’s delegation. “There is harm and damage. There is GGA (harmonization agreement). We also talked about fossil fuels. So I think we’re going somewhere.”
German special envoy for climate Jennifer Morgan, who has been involved in all these talks as an analyst, environmental activist and now negotiator, said this was “very important” and not just for the agreed list of actions.
“This shows that multilateralism works in a world where we have difficulty cooperating in many different areas,” Morgan told the AP hours after the agreement was signed.
Former US special climate envoy Todd Stern, who helped draft the Paris agreement, ranked the UAE agreement fifth on his list of major climate meetings, with Paris first.
CEO Jon Creyts, Stern’s colleague at the RMI think tank, put this year’s agreement second only to Paris “precisely because the message is comprehensive and economy-wide. It also engaged the private sector and local communities on an unprecedented scale. “The voices of the most vulnerable have been heard as the United States and China once again unite in leadership mode.”
Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow also thought his was second only to Paris: “This COP saw the establishment of the loss and damage fund, finally identifying the cause of the climate crisis for the first time – fossil fuels – and committing the world to transition. Action is needed this decade. “This is much more than we get from most COPs.”
Scientist Johan Rockstrom, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, praised what was happening, but like many who ranked it highly, he saw problems.
“We finally have a plan that the world can work on to phase out oil, coal and gas. So far it’s not perfect and not entirely in line with science, but it’s something we can work on,” Rockstrom said in an email. “Will it provide 1.5°C (even if implemented)? Answer is no.”
The problem is that the agreement has too many loopholes that allow countries to continue producing fossil fuels or even expand their use, said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity. He also addressed a part of the text that allows for “transitional” fuels, a term often used by the industry for natural gas, which is not as polluting as coal but still contributes to heating.
“It broke a major political barrier, but it also contained poison pills that could lead to fossil fuel proliferation and climate injustice,” he said.
Joanna Depledge, a historian of climate negotiations at the University of Cambridge in England, said the idea that weak language “is somehow seen as a victory” shows the world is in trouble.
“The widening gap between science and policy, intention and action, has remained virtually unchanged in Dubai,” he added.
Scientists were among those who ranked the UAE deal low.
“In the context of these previous, really important COPs, Dubai is a joke,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international relations.
The agreement’s language “was like promising your doctor to ‘give up donuts’ once you’re diagnosed with diabetes,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating.”
Mann, like former US Vice President Al Gore, has called for dramatic reform of the COP process. Gore, on the other hand, said that it was too early to judge the importance of this COP, but he was not satisfied with the slow progress.
“It has been 31 years since Rio and eight years since the Paris Agreement,” Gore said. “Only now can we summon the political will to name the fundamental problem obstructed by fossil fuel companies and petrostates.”
But Gore and others still have hope.
“I think 1.5 is achievable,” said Thibyan Ibrahim, who is leading harmonization negotiations on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States. “You have to make sure that people will do what they say they will do, that commitments will actually be made, and that commitments will be fulfilled.”
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Sibi Arasu and Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
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Find more information about AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment.
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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears
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