Since the COP21 of 2015, having concluded with the Paris Agreement, which has become the reference, these large political gatherings around the climate crisis have been transformed into places to produce paper which is sent for recycling with barely the ink dried of the signature affixed under the commitments. The 28th Conference of the Parties takes place in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. While the gathering will be held in a country ranking seventh among the world’s largest oil producers, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union (EU) will call for zero fossil fuels to be the conference’s big outcome. Really.
No, the request is not frivolous, assures the EU. Demanding an exit from fossil fuels in the final COP28 agreement is “an emergency established by science, crystal clear”, declared European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra to Agence France-Presse . It is said that this Dutchman is widely listened to because of his experience in the oil sector.
In their eyes, the key elements that will determine the outcome and success of the Conference: the global assessment of mitigation efforts (reduction of greenhouse gases), the fund for “loss and damage” (still under discussion one COP to another) and adaptation to climate change. “For mitigation, we want a peak in emissions in 2025, an exit from fossils, an acceleration on that of coal, the tripling of renewable energies, the doubling of energy efficiency, solving methane emissions, etc. “, we read in the AFP text. Vast construction site!
“The world’s leading experts telling us we need more action, more ambition […] We need it now, because the window of opportunity is closing […] And this includes the rapid exit from fossil fuels in general, and coal in particular,” we read.
Moreover, the latest observations point ever more towards the emergency. The results of a study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change bring forward the date when the planet will reach the critical climate threshold of a 1.5°C increase in temperature compared to pre-industrial levels. “In just over five years, at the beginning of 2029, the world will probably not be able to stay below this limit if it continues to burn fossil fuels at the current rate,” she concludes.
Remember that recent estimates from the European Copernicus Observatory suggested reaching +1.5°C earlier than what climate forecasters previously based themselves on, i.e. by 2034 and no longer 2050.
The study by Robin Lamboll, of Imperial College London, and his team is based on what is called the remaining “carbon budget”, or the amount of fossil fuels the world can burn and still have a 50% chance of limit warming to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. It sets it at 250 billion metric tons. “The world burns a little more than 40 billion metric tons per year (and it continues to increase),” we note in a text from the Associated Press. This is without forgetting that other elements must also be taken into account, such as the effect of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, or the cooling effect of aerosols. The authors add that the carbon budget increases to 1220 billion metric tons if the objective is to keep warming below 2°C, with a 50% chance of achieving this, which represents around 30 years.
In 2020, experts commissioned by the UN estimated the budget for staying below +1.5°C of warming at 500 billion metric tons, and 1,150 billion metric tons for staying below +2°C.
Mr. Lamboll made it clear that limiting warming to +1.5°C is technically possible, but politically difficult and improbable. Therefore, we should rather prepare ourselves for an alignment towards the other target. “Sticking to limited emissions will give us a better chance of staying at 1.6°C or 1.7°C, which would be a very good result [dans les circonstances], given the direction we are heading. » The latest scientific reports show that the planet is currently on a trajectory of +2.4°C or more by the end of the century.
Meanwhile, in Canada…
Ottawa is more than concerned by these pressures towards zero fossils. In a letter dated October 23 sent to the Prime Minister, leaders of environmental organizations recalled the commitments made during Justin Trudeau’s speech in September to the United Nations General Assembly aimed at making climate targets more ambitious and to establish a framework for capping emissions from the oil and gas sector. “We urge you to move forward by adopting, by the end of the year, a firm and effective regulation on capping emissions. »
Despite his two-year-old promises to cap and reduce emissions from this sector, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Melissa Fleming, reminded him during his visit to the Climate Ambition Summit that he had been the one of the world leaders in the expansion of fossil fuels last year, with Canada being one of the countries with the strongest expansion of the fossil fuel sector.
Shortly before the Summit, Oil Change International published the Planet Wreckers report in which Canada was among the five major developed economies — with the United States, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom — accounting for more than half of the The planned expansion of new oil and gas deposits by 2050. If they did not, some 173 billion metric tons of carbon would remain underground.