{"id":250911,"date":"2023-12-25T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T12:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=250911"},"modified":"2023-12-20T05:27:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T05:27:36","slug":"false-transitions-and-global-stocktakes-the-failure-of-cop28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/false-transitions-and-global-stocktakes-the-failure-of-cop28\/","title":{"rendered":"False Transitions and Global Stocktakes: The Failure of COP28"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo Credit: Dean Calma \/ IAEA \u2013 CC BY 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

19 Dec<\/em> 2023 – The time has come to treat the sequence of UN Climate Change Conferences, the latest concluding in Dubai, as a series of the failed and the abysmally rotten.\u00a0\u00a0It shows how a worthless activity, caked (oiled?) with appropriately chosen words, can actually provide assurance that something worthwhile was done.\u00a0\u00a0Along the way, there are always the same beneficiaries: fossil fuel magnates and satirists.<\/p>\n

COP28, which featured 97,000 participants, including the weighty presence of\u00a02,456 fossil fuel lobbyists<\/a>, was even more of a shambles than its predecessor.\u00a0\u00a0Its location \u2013 in an oil rich state \u2013 was head scratching.\u00a0\u00a0Its chairman Sultan Al Jaber, taking advantage of the various parties who would attend, had sought to cultivate some side business for the United Arab Emirates, notably for the state oil company ADNOC.<\/p>\n

This did not deter UN climate change bureaucrats and negotiators, who seemed to equate climate change policy with an account of goods held by a business.\u00a0\u00a0Consider the wording of the\u00a0COP Agreement<\/a>\u00a0released on December 13: \u201cThe global stocktake is considered the central outcome of COP28 \u2013 as it contains every element that was under negotiation and can now be used by countries to develop stronger climate action plans due by 2025.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It was a \u201cglobal stocktake\u201d supposedly signalling the \u201cbeginning of the end\u201d of the fossil fuel era, to be facilitated by \u201claying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emission cuts and scaled-up finance.\u201d<\/p>\n

These words have been treated as sacerdotal by many of its participants, the be all and end all, the event\u2019s great culmination.\u00a0\u00a0But long hours of deliberation can confuse effort with achievement, and this proved to be no exception.\u00a0Tinkering with meaning can be taken as a triumph.\u00a0\u00a0Recognising words such as \u201cfossil fuels\u201d and \u201cscience\u201d can make delegates weak at the knees.\u00a0\u00a0Promises to set targets for a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) make others swoon.<\/p>\n

It was such tinkering that led to the call for a \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable way with developed countries continuing to take the lead.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The emphasis here is on a \u201ctransition away\u201d from their use, not their \u201cphase out\u201d, which is what 130 of the 198 participating parties were willing to accept.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cphase-down\u201d was used regarding \u201cunabated coal power\u201d while \u201cinefficient fossil fuel subsidies\u201d would be phased out, presumably leaving the question open as to what, exactly, efficient subsidies might look like.\u00a0\u00a0Parties were also \u201cencouraged to come forward with ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gases, sectors and categories and aligned with the 1.5\u00b0C in their next round of climate action plans (known as nationally determined contributions) by 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaber was in a\u00a0gleeful mood at the outcome<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The naysayers\u2019 warning that the summit would be an unmitigated failure had been disproved.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTogether, we have confronted realities and we have set the world in the right direction.\u00a0\u00a0We have given it a robust action plan to keep 1.5\u00b0C within reach.\u00a0\u00a0It is a plan that is led by the science.\u201d<\/p>\n

US climate change envoy John Kerry\u00a0thought the document convincing<\/a>: it sent \u201cvery strong messages to the world\u201d providing a much firmer statement on preventing global warming from exceeding the 1.5\u00b0C limit.\u00a0\u00a0Danish Climate Minister Dan J\u00f8rgensen seemed to angle for praise in noting that his country, being \u201can oil rich country surrounded by oil countries that are now signing a piece of paper saying we need to move away from oil\u201d was \u201chistoric\u201d.<\/p>\n

The agreement had an eager audience desperate to identify signs of progress.\u00a0\u00a0Prof. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the COP28 agreement \u201chistoric in that \u2013 for the first time \u2013 it recognizes the need to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Even the\u00a0Scientific American<\/em>\u00a0made the\u00a0observation<\/a>\u00a0that none of the previous 27 climate change conferences had even mentioned fossil fuels and its link to a rise in global temperatures.<\/p>\n

A good gaggle of climatologists and geophysicists were less enthused.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels,\u201d\u00a0opined<\/a>\u00a0Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, \u201cwas devastating.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0To use such an expression as \u201c\u2018transition away from fossil fuels\u2019 was weak tea at best.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s like promising your doctor that you will \u2018transition away from doughnuts\u2019 after being diagnosed with diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n

An\u00a0editorial<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0was also steely in rejecting the way science had been manipulated at the summit, noting Jaber\u2019s own declaration on November 21 that there was no scientific basis that would necessitate phasing out fossil fuels to restrict global warming to the agreed limit.\u00a0\u00a0While the editorial had gone to press before the release of the final agreement, the journal was correct in assuming that it \u201cwould not include language on phasing out fossil fuels.\u00a0\u00a0That is more than a missed opportunity.\u00a0\u00a0It is dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dangers are considerable, given the number of transitioning states.\u00a0\u00a0They include, for instance, India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who seeks the expansion of renewable energy\u00a0while building coal-burning power plants<\/a>, and the current US administration, whose Bureau of Land Management\u00a0approved more oil and gas leases<\/a>\u00a0on federal lands in the first two years and seven months than the previous Trump administration did over the equivalent period.\u00a0\u00a0In the usual doublespeak of the Biden administration, such a policy could comfortably exist alongside its overall green strategy.<\/p>\n

As weak tea as the document is, it\u2019s not even binding.\u00a0\u00a0Countries can still pursue fossil fuel projects, at the behest of strong coal, gas and oil lobbies, even as they claim to be pursuing abating technologies that supposedly minimise emissions.\u00a0\u00a0In Australia, opposition spokesman for climate change and energy Ted O\u2019Brien\u00a0provided<\/a>\u00a0something of an exemplar of this.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWhile the final communique names fossil fuels, it also promotes carbon, capture and storage as abating technology for such fuels along with nuclear energy which can be a zero-emission substitute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record of actions taken to such agreements is not promising.\u00a0\u00a0For one, COP28 seemed riddled with pledges and gestures, a matter of theatre.\u00a0\u00a0The heralded \u201closs and damage fund\u201d received commitments to the total of US$700 million, but this is wretchedly meagre\u00a0when compared<\/a>\u00a0to the annual US$200 to US$400 billion required by Africa alone, let alone the US$400 billion a year for climate change adaptation.<\/p>\n

Debates of herculean obstinacy over word changes in a text can spell the doom of its object.\u00a0\u00a0In future experiments in hot air summitry of the sort witnessed at Dubai, the powerful and wealthy will have room to stretch and delay meaningful change, adopting that famous plea by St. Augustine: \u201cPlease God, make me good, but not just yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: <\/em>bkampmark@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Dec 2023 – The sequence of UN Climate Change Conferences is a series of the failed and the abysmally rotten.\u00a0\u00a0It shows how a worthless activity can provide assurance that something worthwhile was done.\u00a0\u00a0Always the same beneficiaries: fossil fuel magnates and satirists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":250912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[686,3184,550,2828,401,993,894,981,124],"class_list":["post-250911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-cop28","tag-corruption","tag-dubai","tag-environment","tag-global-warming","tag-pollution","tag-uae","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250913,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250911\/revisions\/250913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}