Participating Nations Aim to Transition Away from All Fossil Fuels by 2050
By The ISNA Green Initiative Team
Mar/Apr 2024
COP28 (Conference of Parties signed under the UN Climate Change Conference [UNFCC]), held in the UAE from Nov. 30-Dec. 13, 2023, was awash with flashy country pavilions, corporate-sponsored cocktail parties, and a smorgasbord of side events — so much so that some said the annual UN climate summit was more of a trade show or circus.
There was controversy even before the opening, such as news reports that COP president Prince Sultan Al Jaber, UAE’s oil minister, had used the access to governments worldwide as an opportunity to negotiate oil and gas deals. He was even caught on tape ridiculing the idea that science called for a fossil fuel phaseout.
The event, hosted at a $7 billion venue furnished by oil wealth, accredited more than 2,400 fossil fuel industry lobbyists, which dwarfed the participants from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries combined. Some 85,000 attendees, including more than 150 heads of state and government, were sprinkled among the representatives of national delegations, civil society, business, Indigenous peoples, youth, philanthropy and international organizations in attendance. It was a far cry from the first event in Berlin in 1995, a low-key affair with fewer than 4,000 delegates focused on multilateral climate change cooperation.
The global stock take text lays out the pathway that nations must take to limit global warming to the previously-agreed-upon goal of no more than 2°C higher than pre-industrial levels (https://unfccc.int/documents/636608).
Major Commitments in the Final Text
• An unprecedented reference to transitioning away from all fossil fuels to enable the world to reach net zero by 2050.
• A significant step forward in the expectations for the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by encouraging “economy-wide emission reduction targets.”
• More than 120 nations committed to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. The world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, the U.S. and China, agreed to this even before the conference started.
• The fossil fuel industry has long pitched carbon-capture technology, which sucks carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it deep underground, as a climate panacea. But environmentalists worry that the technology, which has a spotty track record and has never been widely deployed, could become a smokescreen for prolonging fossil fuel use for decades.
• For the first time human health received significant attention. More than 140 countries, including China and the U.S., along with the countries in the European Union, signed a declaration asserting that climate change is costing people their lives and health.
• Conference participants also pledged $85 billion to different climate issues and made 10 pledges: Several actions were announced to address methane pollution, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The U.S. announced regulations to cut methane pollution from the nation’s huge oil and gas industry by nearly 80% through 2038.
• A significant outcome ahead of the conference was the consensus reached between the U.S. and China to triple renewables capacity and cut power-sector emissions by 2030, coupled with commitments to urgently reduce methane emissions.
A clear failure was that of fairness, of climate justice for the countries least responsible for the climate crisis but suffering its worst impacts. COP28 neither delivered for low and middle-income countries, nor did it secure assurances that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for climate change will go furthest, faster and generate the finance needed for a just global transition.
COP28 was doubly disappointing because it put no money on the table to help developing countries transition to renewable energies, said Nafkote Dabi (climate policy lead, Oxfam International). “And rich countries again reneged on their obligations,” he continued, “to help people being hit by the worst impacts of climate breakdown, like those in the Horn of Africa who have recently lost everything from flooding after a historic five-season drought and years of hunger.”
Given the COP conferences’ overarching goal to discuss and negotiate climate change policies and actions, the use of private jets by high-profile individuals clearly undermines this goal. This symbolizes a disconnect between environmental concerns and individual actions and a lack of commitment to sustainable practices. For instance, King Charles, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary David Cameron are just three of the attendees who traveled in separate planes. But they are just three participants among hundreds and hundreds of others who traveled there by private jets or yachts.
It has to be seen how their declarations translate into real action. As former vice president Al Gore said, “Whether this is a turning point that truly marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era depends on the actions that come next.”
ISNA’s Green Initiative Team includes Huda Alkaff, Saffet Catovic, Nana Firman, Uzma Mirza and Saiyid Masroor Shah (chair).
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