“It is indeed the beginning of the end of fossil fuels that has been recorded,” explains François Gemenne

Every Saturday we decipher climate issues with François Gemenne, professor at HEC, president of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man and member of the IPCC. Saturday December 15: the agreement adopted at COP 28.

On Wednesday, December 13, an agreement was reached between the nearly 200 countries participating in COP 28 in Dubai. After two weeks of negotiations, the final text calls for a “transition away from fossil fuels” to fight against global warming. This text aims to accelerate action “in this crucial decade, in order to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050”.

franceinfo: is this agreement really historic, as we hear a lot?

François Gemenne : It’s always complicated to judge the historic nature of a moment without having the slightest perspective on this moment, but indeed, the feeling which dominated in Dubai, as the COP28 closed, was that of a great satisfaction when reading the text of the agreement, which was undeniably more ambitious than the first draft which had been proposed by the presidency. And these reactions obviously contrasted with those we heard in France, and which pointed to a masquerade, an anachronistic agreement, a pure communication scam.

How do you explain this contrast?

I think it all comes from a big misunderstanding about the status of the agreements reached at the COPs. Many imagine that these are legal, binding agreements that will commit governments to quantified objectives and timetables, with sanctions involved. And so, if we wait for the COPs to produce this, obviously, we will be disappointed and we will consider that all this is useless. Because it is not an agreement at the COP, however successful this COP may be, that will reduce emissions on its own. We saw this clearly with the Paris agreement: emissions did not fall after the adoption of the agreement, it doesn’t happen like that.

The objective of the COPs is to try to bring the positions of the different countries together towards a common trajectory. And these different countries, obviously, start from very different starting points, do not have the same constraints, nor the same natural resources, the same political regimes or level of economic development. And some countries are even at open war with others. This is why the agreement obtained at COP 28 is a tour de force: because it manages to bring everyone together towards a common trajectory. And this trajectory is a trajectory away from fossil fuels, it is that of a post-carbon world.

The text does not speak of an exit from fossil fuels, but of “transition away from fossil fuels”…

Wording which is a little difficult to translate, moreover… But here again, it is necessary to understand that it is indeed an exit that is involved. Simply, the term “exit”, written as such, was an impassable red line for certain countries. And so we found a paraphrase, quite clever indeed, to prevent these countries from losing face and blocking the agreement. But politically, it is the beginning of the end of fossil fuels that has been declared.

“The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sent its members a letter asking them not to approve the agreement, and its members still approved the agreement: this is a fundamental turning point. “

François Gemenne

on franceinfo

The agreement still provides for many loopholes, in particular by allowing the use of carbon capture technologies, which would make it possible to continue burning fossil fuels despite everything…

Of course. There are concessions that have been made here, gaps, loopholes, weaknesses. And if you have a legal reading of the text, it will jump out at you, obviously. But I believe that we must have a political reading of it. When you are the European Union, when you have no oil or gas and almost no coal, it is easy to say that we must get away from fossil fuels. But if these energies are your main economic resource, or if you rely on them to ensure your development, it is much more complicated. And that’s why it’s a fundamental turning point: because all countries, even those, today accept the idea that the end of fossil fuels is planned.

We’re not going to close the oil wells though?

No. At least not right away. And we would also have a hard time doing without oil in the immediate future, let’s not be hypocrites. On the other hand, we are sending a strong signal to the markets, industries and especially to investors, we are giving direction. And that’s how we progress, because the COPs are an iterative process: each year, it’s about bringing countries closer together towards a common future, because our climate future obviously depends on collective action. – we are all linked to each other by the physics of climate. And despite everything, we are making progress.

“At the time of the Paris agreement, we were still on a trajectory of a temperature rise of around 4°C. Today we are on a trajectory of 3°C.”

François Gemenne

on franceinfo

We’re not there yet, but we’re making progress.

So we can’t say that the COPs are useless?

We like to hit on the COPs, but it’s a posture that is often a little populist. The reality is that we like to ridicule international cooperation, but we absolutely need it, by definition. Simply we should not expect more than what it can give: the UN is not a supranational government, simply an organization which tries to get very different people to work together who absolutely must cooperate. And in such a fragmented international context, in such a divided world, this agreement remains a small diplomatic miracle, which should encourage us to move forward more quickly.