With talks at COP28 extending past the Tuesday deadline potentially portending a collapse of negotiations, speculation about the future of the failing COP process points to flaws in the very framework of the negotiating process itself. In nearly 30 years of meetings, global temperatures continue to rise and the integrity of the process is highly questionable, given the influx of fossil fuel lobbyists and the hosting of conferences by petrostates.
A spokesperson for COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber issued the following statement regarding the status of the negotiations:
“Overnight and throughout today, the COP28 President and his team have been engaging in extensive consultations with a wide representation of negotiating groups and Parties. This is to ensure everyone is heard, and all views are considered. He is determined to deliver a version of the text that has the support of all Parties. Consultations will continue until 03:00AM GST.”
Australia, Canada, Chile, Norway and the United States are among the 100 countries rejecting the current draft as being too weak as they hold the line for language demanding a total phase-out of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, the major cause of global warming, are also currently meeting 80% of the world’s energy needs.
The current text represents the first time the words “fossil fuels” have even been mentioned in a negotiating document. It calls for nonbinding options for cutting emissions by reducing “both consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050″.
In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece today,“ climate scientist Michael Mann and Susan Joy Hassol, the director of Climate Communication wrote “COP28 has become a shameless exercise in the fight against climate change. But can we afford to walk out?” They suggest changing the voting system from consensus to majority and banning oil executives and petrostates from hosting and leading future COPs.
As Saudi Arabia and other fossil-fueled economies reject the “phase-out” of fossil fuels in the global stocktake (GST) document, The Guardian columnist George Monbiot called for the establishment of an International Climate Agency similar in format to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Referring to Paris and Kyoto as the only climate summits to be even halfway successful. “If any other process had a 3.7% success rate, it would be abandoned in favour of something better,” he said, while calling for a ban on beef and oil industry lobbyists and “binding treaties on fossil fuels and deforestation” with a different voting system.
An overview of Tuesday morning at COP28 courtesy of The Guardian:
-
More countries expressed anger at the draft text for its lack of ambition.
-
The UK’s climate minister left the climate conference.
-
Campaigners warned that the historic loss and damage agreement from the first day of the summit is still lacking.
-
Indigenous and global south activists called out rich country ‘hypocrisy’ in pushing to phase out fossil fuels globally while increasing production at home.
In covering the UK climate minister’s departure from the climate conference, the Guardian notes:
Politicians and delegates from the UK reacted with fury as it emerged that climate change minister Graham Stuart had flown home from the summit, ostensibly to shore up the government’s vote on Rwanda. The government said that Richard Benyon had come out to cover him, and that he would be returning. If the summit does end tomorrow as the presidency hopes, of course, that will be a long wasted journey.
-snip-
Rebecca Newsom, of Greenpeace, told the Guardian: “This is an outrageous dereliction of leadership at the most critical point during this conference. This is the moment when we need to see bold political commitments to unlock the gridlock on the text.
“Instead of fleeing Dubai, Stuart should be here to broker the compromises really needed to act upon developing countries’ urgent demands for more public finance to deliver a full fossil fuel phase-out. And he should be making clear that the UK, as a rich historically polluting country, is prepared to lead the way on delivering the renewable transition way from fossil fuels. The world is watching, and the Conservative government’s failure to lead at Cop28 is becoming increasingly obvious.”