Between cynicism and disappointed hopes, where do you stand in the face of the international high mass of the environment being held in the United Arab Emirates, 7e oil power of the world? The last COPs took place in a context of ever more glaring environmental emergency, but they produced commitments that were too timid to bring about the changes loudly demanded for the planet, the deterioration of which is more and more evident. The closer we get to the environmental tipping point predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the more robust policy actions become essential. What should we expect from this great show smoke?
When the president of the COP is also the director of one of the largest oil companies in the world, we are entitled to raise our eyebrows. This is what the whole world has been doing since it knew that it is Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, who will have to encourage the 196 delegations participating in COP28 to multiply efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This controversial COP, located in the land of oil, abundance and glitz, saw its president plunged into embarrassment this week following shocking revelations from the BBC suggesting that Sultan al-Jaber would have used its role at COP28 to conclude deals in the fossil fuel sector. The main person concerned denies it outright. UN Secretary General António Guterres can’t believe his eyes. We neither.
Despite the skepticism that surrounds it, this COP should normally make it possible to take stock of the measures adopted since the Paris Agreement of 2015. The countries which will participate must develop scenarios which will make it possible to reverse the trend which will lead us, if nothing changes, towards exceeding the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Just published, the 2023 Emissions Reduction Gap Report of the United Nations Environment Program leaves little room for maneuver. Its main conclusion is stark: “Temperatures are reaching new heights, but the world is (still) not reducing its emissions. » No need to imagine fictitious scenarios to believe that extreme weather phenomena are obvious manifestations of this global warming whose acceleration must be curbed. In addition to an unprecedented succession of temperature records, the report sadly highlights that global GHG emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentrations have never been as high as in 2022. It is therefore an unprecedented effort that the delegations meeting these days in Dubai will have to commit to providing. Remember that G20 member countries alone are responsible for 76% of global GHG emissions.
The authors of the report warn that the strategy of small steps can no longer suffice where giant strides are expected. Canada is part of the group of countries whose announced ambitions are crushed on the altar of reality. The report gives it the highest gap (27%) between its concrete policies and its intentions. In a powerful interview given to our journalist Alexandre Shields, the former Minister of the Environment of Canada Catherine McKenna pleads precisely for more “firmness” on the part of the federal government in a Canadian context where the fossil fuel industry is trying to thwart policies to combat climate change.
The confidences of a former Minister of the Environment on her efforts made — in vain! — to try to find solutions with the fossil fuel industry are interesting to say the least. And they come at just the right time. Mme McKenna, who is in Dubai these days as director of the firm Climate and Nature Solutions, remembers the difficulties experienced in particular with Alberta and Saskatchewan, which still stand in the way of Justin Trudeau today. The Premier of Saskatchewan rightly thumbed his nose at Ottawa on Thursday by announcing that people heating with electricity would be exempt from the carbon tax in January. Saskatchewan objected to the Trudeau government’s decision at the end of October to suspend carbon pricing on fuel oil used for residential heating – a decision which does not improve Mr. Trudeau’s environmental record.
To reduce the annoying gap between what it promises and what it does, Canada must opt for a line of consistency with the oil industry and have the courage to finally impose an emissions cap on the production of oil and gas, which he has not yet done despite a promise made at COP26 in Glasgow. In the kingdom of oil, will COP28 ironically be the perfect place so that promises do not go up in smoke?