Countries from around the world are meeting in the United Arab Emirates from November 30 to December 12 to accelerate the fight against climate change. Franceinfo describes five hot points in the negotiations.
It is billed as the largest climate conference ever organized. After a year of record temperatures and climate disasters around the world, COP28 brings together in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) the parties, in other words the signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, i.e. 197 States and the European Union.
This edition, particularly scrutinized by its oil host, is crucial. It must indeed agree on the first official assessment of the Paris agreement, in order to determine whether or not global policies have made it possible to place humanity on a trajectory which will limit warming to 1 .5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. And set out in black and white the measures necessary to correct the situation. Franceinfo summarizes the different issues of this event, a key step in the fight against climate change.
1 Establish an initial assessment of the Paris agreement
On the results of past action, there is little suspense. “We’re not there”, summarize the observers. At the beginning of September, the UN published a first technical assessment (in PDF) of the implementation of the Paris agreement. “Global emissions are not following mitigation trajectories… consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature target, and opportunities to raise ambition… are rapidly dwindling “, it is written. This document must now serve as an indisputable basis during the Dubai negotiations.
The countries will have to agree on a text, the political transcription of these technical conclusions. “What political message will COP28 succeed in sending so that everyone, in 2024, prepares new commitments?”, questions Lola Vallejo, director of the climate program at the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri). The French delegation wants to keep the objective of limiting warming to 1.5°C at all costs. “What we want is to inform the parties about what needs to be done as quickly as possible during this critical decade. We still have a window of opportunity which is shrinking day by day to stay at 1.5 °C”defends Stéphane Crouzat, climate ambassador of France.
“Every fraction counts. In its specific report, the IPCC showed us that a world at +2°C is very, very different from a world at +1.5°C.”
Stéphane Crouzat, ambassador in charge of international climate negotiationsat franceinfo
The objective of limiting global warming to +1.5°C is moving further and further away, with the UN having estimated, in mid-November, that countries’ current commitments would lead to a 2% reduction in emissions between 2019. and 2030, instead of the 43% recommended for this. And towards warming of up to 2.9°C during this century, well beyond the limits set by the international community.
2 Show clear energy objectives
The consumption of fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) is responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, as detailed on the website of the Ministry of Energy Transition. Their progressive replacement is therefore at the heart of COP discussions, year after year. In Dubai, three energy objectives will be particularly discussed: tripling the capacity of renewable energies installed in the world, doubling the improvement in energy efficiency (i.e. the yield at final consumption) and, finally, ending our dependence on fossil fuels. This package could be found in the final text of the COP.
“The third objective is the most contentious. It embarrasses many countries and there is a risk that the COP will agree on the first two objectives without having the third”, explains Lola Vallejo. A scenario that has already happened in previous years. In 2021, only the massive reduction in coal was adopted at COP26 in Glasgow. The future of oil and gas has never been on the agenda. “For the moment, we are therefore in a phase of adding energy capacities, there is not really a global transition”, adds the researcher. Many countries, including those in the European Union, are therefore pushing for the virtual elimination of fuels burned without carbon capture or storage. When ? At what pace? Each of these questions promises to be hotly debated.
Several reports published before the COP should provide food for thought. For example, the UN warned on November 7 against plans to expand oil, gas and coal production, projects that threaten the objective of the Paris agreement. “As things stand, demand for fossil fuels is likely to remain far too high” to contain the rise in temperatures to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era, the International Energy Agency explained shortly before in its annual report.
3 Involving the oil sector in the transition
To organize the necessary exit from fossil fuels, the objective cited above, environmental defenders strongly criticized the choice of the host country of this COP28, the United Arab Emirates. As well as entrusting the presidency to the boss of the Emirati oil company, Sultan al-Jaber. “Many NGOs said it was a huge cognitive dissonance, like putting a tobacco company at the head of the WHO”, compares Lola Vallejo. Others, on the other hand, see it as an opportunity to talk concretely about the energy transition. “Being an oilman, knowing this environment perfectly, in a certain way, is an advantage”says Stéphane Crouzat.
Faced with these doubts, the president of COP28, also accused of having taken advantage of his position to conclude deals in fossil fuels, tried to reassure: “The reduction of fossil fuels is inevitable.” It remains to be seen how this sentence will be transcribed in the final document of COP28 and what place will be given to carbon capture and storage solutions, judged by the IPCC to be necessary in a small proportion but still not very mature and accused of being a justification for the expansion of fossil fuel production instead of favoring alternatives.
The presence of fossil fuel lobbyists will also be scrutinized, although their number had broken records at COP27 and had helped to produce an unambitious text which did not mention the exit from these energies that emit greenhouse gases. “All points of view are welcome and all points of view are necessary”, said Sultan al-Jaber. And this includes lobbies and big oil companies, even in national delegations.
4 Organize the loss and damage fund
This was the major result of the Egyptian COP in Sharm-el-Sheikh in 2022: the creation of a fund to compensate for the “losses and damages” of countries victims of climate disasters. But its implementation is desired. COP28 will have to answer a certain number of politically explosive questions. Who should pay: the developed countries, historically responsible for warming, or also China and the Gulf countries? Who will be the beneficiaries: developing countries, including China, or only the “most vulnerable”? Where to install this fund? Within the World Bank, accused of being in the hands of the West, or in an independent structure that takes a long time to set up?
A transition committee, made up of 24 members from the North and South, was responsible throughout the year for finding recommendations to make at the COP. “At the beginning of November, praise God, we found a consensus on the terms of creation of this fund, the location, the recipient countries, the donor base…” reports Stéphane Crouzat, reassured. “It won’t just be so-called developed countries, but it will also be open to all those who can do it”, he begins to draw. The committee must now have its recommendations adopted.
5 Unlock promised funding
Finance is one of the cross-cutting themes highlighted by the UAE presidency of the COP. Several envelopes will be discussed in Dubai. First, the $100 billion in aid per year promised in 2009 by rich countries to finance both adaptation to global warming and emissions reductions in developing countries. The amount only reached $83 billion, according to the most recent 2020 figures provided by the OECD. This latter source, however, declared in mid-November that the rich countries had “probably” achieved their funding promise in 2022, two years late.
Furthermore, this aid must be increased in 2025. “We promised 100 billion per year until 2025. But we will have to decide on what happens next. How much? To include what? Private finance too? etc. This debate will have to end at COP29, but will be discussed from COP28. There will be a desire on the part of developing countries to have assurances, a quantified objective that meets their expectations.”, further explains the diplomat. Another failing package: the promise made in Glasgow in 2021 to double adaptation funding between 2019 and 2025, to reach 40 billion euros per year. “Developing countries will ask us where we are”predicts the French ambassador for the climate.
So many amounts, even added together, which still remain far from the mark: a group of United Nations experts had in fact estimated, at the end of 2022, that spending of more than 2,000 billion dollars would be necessary each year by 2030 to finance adaptation to climate change and the development of these countries. They therefore called on COP28 to promote a “radical change”.