At a time when humanity is experiencing the hottest year in its history, the countries meeting at the United Nations climate conference (COP28) finally managed to agree to include for the first time the objective of a ” transition” away from all fossil fuels. A step forward welcomed by many, but which is for the moment clearly insufficient to avoid the worst of what science predicts.
At the end of a marathon of negotiations which continued beyond the end planned for this COP28, the countries meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, accepted the text submitted by the president of the conference, Sultan Al Jaber , to resolve the impasse on the crucial issue of including fossil fuels in the final text.
The document, which should normally serve as an international road map to combat the climate crisis, thus underlines “the need for a strong, rapid and sustained reduction in greenhouse gas emissions”, in order to keep the climate alive. “the most ambitious objective of the Paris Agreement, namely to limit warming to a maximum of 1.5°C”, compared to the pre-industrial era.
To achieve this, the text leaves it to States to decide on the course of action to follow according to their national contexts, but it specifies the need to triple the production of renewable energies on a global scale, to reduce the use of coal and above all, to “transition away from fossil fuels”. This is the first time that a text adopted at a COP explicitly mentions the need to concretely reduce our dependence on oil, gas and coal.
This transition, it is specified in the document, must however be done “in a fair, orderly and equitable manner, by accelerating action in this crucial decade, in order to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 in accordance with scientific recommendations. “. The transition in a “fair, orderly and equitable manner” means respecting a different pace depending on the countries, their development needs and their historical responsibility for global warming.
The text which was adopted by consensus at the end of COP28 is not binding. Nevertheless, the vocabulary included in the document is hotly debated at each United Nations climate conference. Sultan Al Jaber therefore proposed a compromise between an “exit” from fossil fuels demanded by several States, scientists and environmentalists, and the pure and simple absence of mention of these energies, which was desired by oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia.
“Historic” decision
Following its adoption on Wednesday morning in Dubai, the President of COP28 welcomed a “historic” decision to accelerate climate action.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, for his part insisted that this agreement must send a clear message to countries and companies which still derive enormous profits from the exploitation of the energies which fuel the climate crisis.
“I want to say that the exit from fossil fuels is inevitable, whether they like it or not. Let us hope that it does not come too late,” he stressed, addressing “those who opposed a clear reference” to this notion of elimination in the COP28 text. “The world cannot afford delays, indecision or half-measures,” Mr. Guterres also insisted.
According to a report published just before COP28 by the International Energy Agency, in addition to eliminating the still widely used coal (nine billion tonnes in 2022), the use of coal should be reduced by at least 75%. oil and gas within 25 years to hope to limit warming to the viable threshold of 1.5°C.
In this context, the European Union underlined the desire to triple the production of renewable energies in the world by the end of the decade, a crucial avenue for reducing dependence on energy sources that emit the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity and which still represent more than 80% of our energy consumption.
Avoid failure
The Canadian Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, insisted on the progress in this new agreement, which comes eight years after the signing of the Paris Agreement. “The text contains decisive commitments in terms of renewable energy, energy efficiency and the transition away from fossil fuels,” he said.
“The text is not perfect, no United Nations text is. But, as someone who has worked in this field for almost 30 years, I see a vision we can rally around to keep 1.5°C within reach and protect people and ecosystems,” he said. -he adds.
For the moment, the countries meeting within the framework of the COPs had only managed to include in their final declaration the idea of a “reduction” of the use of coal without a carbon capture mechanism. This inclusion was in the COP26 declaration, in 2021. In 2022, fossil fuel producing countries managed to block the idea of extending this very non-binding language to oil and gas.
The American climate envoy, John Kerry, also welcomed the conclusion of an agreement, having repeatedly called on countries to avoid failure in recent days. “This is the last COP where we will have the chance to be able to keep 1.5°C alive,” he argued on Monday.
Warming
The current commitments of States, if fully respected, would however lead to a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions of 5.3% by 2030, compared to the 2019 level. However, to hope to give ourselves a chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, the decline is expected to reach at least 43% by the end of the decade. For the moment, the global climate trajectory could lead us to a warming of nearly 3°C by 2100. By the end of the century, the world as we know it would become completely “unrecognizable”, according to the Group of intergovernmental experts on climate change.
In this context, the alliance of small island states, particularly threatened by climate change, expressed its reservations and concerns after the adoption of the text, which it considers insufficient. “We have taken a step forward from the status quo, but it is an exponential change that we really needed,” said Anne Rasmussen, representative of the Samoa Islands, applauded after this declaration by European representatives and other countries. other nations during the last plenary session.
“As communities around the world already face the heartbreaking consequences of the convergence of the climate and debt crises, Canada and other rich countries must take responsibility and drastically increase their financing for adaptation and loss and damage », Also argued the general director of the Climate Action Network Canada, Caroline Brouillette.