Halfway through COP28, here’s a roundup of some of the key developments and announcements coming out of the conference.

COP28 is the annual UN climate conference happening this year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For background on the conference, please see this COP28 Explainer.

Attendance

A record 84,000 people are attending the conference this year including nearly 2,500 lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry. Also a record.

It’s not yet clear whether record attendance will translate into record achievement. Some critics say the conference has become a “circus” and a “jamboree” that’s either irrelevant or in need of major reform. More on this below.

Climate finance

As expected, climate finance has been a major topic at COP28. Developing countries need help in responding to climate change – a problem largely created by the G20 wealthy industrial countries.  

There have been two major climate finance developments so far.

First, a loss and damage fund, announced at last year’s COP27, has finally become operational after lengthy and tense negotiations. About US$655-million has been pledged to the fund, according to this COP28 climate funds pledge tracker compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC).

This is a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of billions needed to help vulnerable countries recover from damages they have already suffered from storms, sea level rise and other disasters related to climate change.

Second, the United Arab Emirates announced formation of a US$30-billion fund called ALTÉRRA to help drive private financing of climate projects in emerging markets and developing economies. The fund hopes to raise $250-billion by 2030.

It’s been suggested the fund was created to blunt criticism of the UAE, a petrostate that has announced plans to increase oil and gas production in spite of the climate crisis.

These announcements are both welcome – whatever their motives – but they represent miniscule commitments relative to the amounts needed.

Methane emissions

50 oil and gas companies have pledged to reduce methane emissions to “near zero” by 2030 and to eliminate routing flaring (literally burning methane at oil wells). Methane is a critical greenhouse gas that’s about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its warming effect on the atmosphere. The pledge is part of the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter announced at COP28 on December 2, 2023.

To be clear, these commitments refer to leakage of methane from oil and gas industry operations like wells, pipelines, compressors, etc. They don’t cover actual burning of methane for power generation or any other end use.  

The pledges have been panned by environmental groups who claim they don’t go any farther than existing oil and gas industry commitments which the industry has failed to meet.

Meanwhile, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced its own methane rule which will result in an 80% reduction in methane leaks from oil and gas operations by 2038. The rule doesn’t cover methane leaks from agriculture or landfills.

While I’d like to see more aggressive timelines, these steps indicate a welcome focus on reducing methane emissions. One significant piece of both the Charter and the new EPA rule is the inclusion of compliance monitoring by third parties. This should hopefully ensure some degree of accountability during implementation.

Renewables and efficiency

116 countries have signed the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge which calls for:

• Tripling the world’s installed renewable energy generation capacity by 2030 to 11,000 GW.
• Doubling the rate of annual improvements in energy efficiency around the world from 2% to 4% until 2030.

The pledge also recognizes the world must move to energy systems that do not use unabated fossil fuels.

China and India did not sign the pledge although reportedly both support the goal of tripling renewables.

Still I think this might be the most significant development from the conference so far.

COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber

One of the most controversial aspects of COP28 is its president, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber who is also CEO of the UAE’s national oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

According to this report in The Guardian, Al Jaber got himself into hot water the other day. In a discussion about whether to phase down or phase out fossil fuels, he said there is “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C”.

This generated a firestorm of condemnation, entirely justified in my view, from scientists, activists, and other COP attendees. He later held a press conference clarifying his remarks.

What’s next?

After the first week of COP28, all the heads of state have made their speeches and gone home. Now the hard work is left to the diplomats and technocrats. There’s a lot on their plates.

• Delegates must review the first Global Stocktake on the Paris Agreement and come up with new proposals for accelerating implementation in order to prevent global warming from exceeding 2°C, let alone the stretch goal of 1.5°C.

• There’s more to come on climate finance, particularly in relation to a stale $100-billion pledge to assist less developed countries. 

• Highly contentious negotiations about whether the final agreement coming out of COP28 will call for a phase-out or phase-down of fossil fuels. My guess is that the text will include something about a phase-out of “unabated” fossil fuel emissions – emissions that are not “abated” by carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS). An open question is under what scenarios or use cases such abatements will be permitted. I expect this one won’t be resolved until the last minute, if it’s resolved at all.

• I’m hoping to see some announcements on deforestation.

• Finally, COP reform. Although not on the formal COP28 agenda, I’ve seen and heard increasing calls for reform of the COP process itself to enable more rapid progress, especially by smaller groups focused on specific problems. I think the circus-like atmosphere in Dubai is contributing to this.

Thanks for reading.

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What’s happening at COP28? © 2023 by Harry Katz is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

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