“The stakes are too high” to boycott the conference organized in the petromonarchy, says an NGO leader

Thursday November 28 opens COP28, a major conference where countries around the world must make new commitments against climate change. This year’s host country is Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates’ petromonarchies, which has one of the worst per capita carbon footprints in the world.

However, “the stakes are too high” to boycott the COP, believes Fanny Petitbon, head of advocacy for the NGO CARE who will be on site. “We asked ourselves the question of having this COP in a country whose economy relies heavily on fossil fuels, but we did not ask ourselves it for very long”explains Fanny Petibon, “because the stakes are too high.”

This is a COP where fossil fuel lobbies will continue to come in numbers and therefore there is no question of giving them space.

Fanny Petitbon, from the NGO CARE

on franceinfo

According to her, “It’s a COP which will be a moment of truth to know where we are and how to create an electric shock to finally honor the commitments of the Paris agreement. And then it’s a COP where we must continue to carry the voice of the most vulnerable populations. We saw it this year with the floods in Somalia. We saw it with the heat records broken across the planet. We must act. We must constantly hold governments to account .”