“The COPs can obviously be improved, but we are condemned to act together,” recalls François Gemenne, member of the IPCC

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.

As COP28 in Dubai ends on Tuesday, December 12, François Gemenne, professor at HEC and member of the IPCC, visited the site and shared his impressions with us, looking back at the history of the COPs since their creation.

franceinfo: François Gemenne, you are at COP28, in Dubai, and you are not the only one. A record number of participants, with nearly 100,000 people, are accredited over the fortnight this year. What are all these people doing in Dubai?

François Gemenne: It’s clear that there is a big difference between the first COPs, around twenty years ago, which were mainly technical meetings for a few hundred diplomats and the COP28, which is a large trade fair around the climate . Over time, the COPs have become the annual climate event, the time when all parties who are affected by the issue of climate change come together.

“We will meet negotiators, but also activists, lobbyists, entrepreneurs, financiers, politicians, journalists and also researchers, of course.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

So the COP is not just a negotiation between governments?

That’s what it’s all about, obviously, and that remains its reason for being. But it is also a major scientific congress, a major gathering of activists, a major trade fair, a major exchange for decarbonization projects. Basically, it is a great global climate parliament. As the climate is a subject that becomes more important and more worrying every year, it is logical that the COPs attract more and more people.

There are more and more lobbyists, also, nearly 2,500 are present at COP28, it’s a record!

Yes, it is inevitable. We are discussing the future of fossil fuels here, so obviously this is of interest to the coal, oil and gas industries. Sometimes I have the impression that we would prefer that the COPs interest no one, and are held in a closed room. If the COP attracts so many lobbyists, it is simply because we are getting to the heart of the subject. We must keep two things in mind: most lobbyists are mainly there to negotiate contracts and find funding. But some are also there to try to influence the course of the negotiations, of course.

“We must not forget that NGOs are much more numerous than lobbyists: in Dubai, there are 14,000 representatives of civil society.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

However, there are many people who say that the COPs are useless. Do you have the impression that this waste of resources is really justified?

The COPs are very big events and there are a lot of things we could do to improve them. But I think that this openness to the outside world is also a big asset of the COPs. The alternative would be confidential negotiations, closed to the public, even though they concern one of the greatest challenges facing Humanity, if not the greatest challenge of the moment.

The fact remains that global emissions are still not decreasing, so we inevitably wonder what the point is…

We have to see where we are starting from: at the time of the Paris Agreement, in 2015, we were on a scenario of an increase in the global average temperature of +4° in 2100, if we did not change the trajectory . Today we are more on a +3° scenario. We are still far from the objective of +2°, and even further from the objective of +1.5°. But we can’t say that we aren’t making progress either! If it had not been for the Paris Agreement, and before it the Kyoto Protocol, nothing would have been done. Without funding for loss and damage, there will be no climate justice. Without investments in the energy transition of countries in the South, the transition will not happen. Everything that is discussed and decided here is absolutely essential.

“It’s about bringing together the points of view of 197 countries which do not start at all from the same starting line, which do not have at all the same constraints, nor the same levels of development, nor the same regimes policies.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

And who also do not have the same vision of climate change, nor the same perspectives regarding the responses to it. The COP is also a humbling experience, in this regard: there is the way we see things, and the way others see things. And what shocks some is sometimes what excites others.

But how to do it then?

We must accept, I believe, that the COPs are basically only a reflection of what is happening in society. It’s a kind of echo chamber. If nothing progresses in society, if governments are not ready to commit, then the COP will not be able to produce any progress.

“The COP serves to bring together points of view, to establish a common framework, but the COP does not have the power to impose decisions on governments that they do not want, it is not a supranational government.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

Everything depends on the commitments of States.

What can we reasonably expect, then?

No government can act effectively alone against climate change. The COPs can obviously be improved, but we are condemned to act together. The physics of climate requires international cooperation, however cumbersome and tedious it may be.

“We must understand that the decisions taken at the COP are above all signals sent to industry and the markets.”

François Gemenne

at franceinfo

On fossil fuels, the decision will indicate what the future of energy will be for the coming decades. And the real marker of its success will be the share price of oil and gas companies the day after the close…