It’s Big Oil vs. Science at the UN climate summit
With new pledges to reduce methane and billions of dollars in new pledges to help poor countries adapt to a warming planet, there was a sense of momentum and optimism in the first days of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai.
Now comes the hardest part.
Five days into the two-week conference known as COP28, the talks have been consumed by intense debate over the future of fossil fuels.
The event’s chairman is under fire for suggesting there is no need to phase out oil, gas and coal, the combustion of which dangerously heats the planet. At least 1,300 fossil fuel lobbyists are participating in the talks. And Saudi Arabia has said it opposes any agreement that calls for an end to fossil fuels — important because under U.N. rules any individual country can break a deal.
At the same time, scientists, activists and dozens of world leaders are becoming increasingly adamant in their calls for a rapid reduction in oil, gas and coal, arguing that without a shift away from fossil fuels, the planet is destined for catastrophe. An agreement on a phase-out would be historic; Previous UN climate agreements have shied away from even including the words “fossil fuels.”
Against this backdrop, negotiators from more than 170 countries are working furiously to broker an agreement that can be approved by all countries next Tuesday.
“The COP presidency has brought baggage to this process, and far too many oil lobbyists,” said Tzeporah Berman, a Canadian activist and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “He also provided an opportunity for a real conversation about phasing out fossil fuels.”
Tensions over the decision to go ahead with the event in the Emirates have raged for months and came into focus on Monday when Sultan Al Jaber, the oil executive chairing the climate talks, came under fire for saying there was “no science” sits behind. idea that fossil fuels must be phased out to prevent the average global temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
That’s the threshold above which scientists say humans will struggle to adapt to increasingly severe storms, heat, drought and fire. The planet has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius.
On Tuesday, a group of more than 100 leading climate scientists released a response, reiterating the consensus that countries must rapidly phase out fossil fuels to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“There seems to be some uncertainty in the corridors of the negotiations about where the science stands,” said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and one of the authors of the letter. “So we wanted to provide a very solid summary of the overwhelming evidence that we have.”
Mr Al Jaber has tried to walk back his comments, but the debate has highlighted the influence of oil-producing countries and the fossil fuel lobby.
Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland who tried unsuccessfully to pressure Mr Al Jaber to support an end to fossil fuels, said the COP28 president had been ‘compromised’. But she added: “He said we should judge him based on the results, and we will.”
The rancorous debate over the future of fossil fuels takes place in a beautiful desert metropolis built with an oil fortune. After long days of hectic meetings in a sprawling conference center, diplomats and executives retreat to Dubai’s luxury hotels for poolside receptions and private dinners on man-made islands.
Yet the time for consensus is short.
Many scientists and activists want the final deal, due in a week, to include unequivocal language calling for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels.
“I don’t think we’ll leave Dubai without clear language and clear guidance on moving away from fossil fuels,” said David Waskow, director of the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute, an environmental research group.
But several Gulf leaders and top oil officials have indicated they are not open to such language.
“Absolutely not,” says the Saudi energy minister. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said when asked during a television interview in Riyadh whether his country would support an agreement that called for phasing out or phasing out fossil fuels.
Aaron Padilla, vice president of corporate policy at the American Petroleum Institute, which represents some of the largest oil and gas companies in the United States, called the effort to demand a phase-out of fossil fuels “misguided.”
Earlier at the conference, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said: told the Financial Times that the discussions had placed ‘far too much emphasis on getting rid of fossil fuels, oil and gas’ and not enough on ‘dealing with the emissions that come with them’.
In Dubai, Mr Woods has been closely joined by the fossil fuel industry. For the first time, the United Nations required attendees to disclose their ties, and The Associated Press counted at least 1,300 attendees working on behalf of oil, gas and coal interests. That’s three times the number of fossil fuel lobbyists who would have attended last year’s climate summit, the AP reported.
While summit organizers declared Tuesday Energy Transition Day, activists renamed the day Fossil Fuel Phase-out Day and carried out a series of actions to make their case.
At one point, a protester wearing a long cape covered with images of a burning forest walked toward the crowd of about a hundred people, waving his arms like a butterfly, to the beat of a drum that grew faster and faster.
Protesters carried a silver model of an oil pipeline high into the air, with a message on the side that read, “Make the polluters pay.”
“The world is on fire, can’t you see!” shouted a climate activist, Amalen Sathanathar, part of a group called the Artivist Network, into a megaphone. “We are still fanning the flames.”
Late on Monday, negotiators published a 24-page draft agreement that gave an indication of the distance that still exists between the countries on the issue of a phase-out. It offered a number of different options, ranging from a clearly defined “orderly and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels” to no mention of it at all.
Many countries and fossil fuel companies are calling for an end to “unabated fossil fuels,” which broadly means that new coal, oil and gas power plants must incorporate technology that captures emissions before they can be released into the atmosphere. This emerging technology is expensive and not available on a commercial scale. Currently it removes only 0.1 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
David Tong of Oil Change International, an advocacy group, argued that the reduction would “serve as an escape hatch for the industry” because it would allow companies to continue drilling for oil and gas. Mr Tong also noted that there is no agreed definition of “unabated” in the UN climate body, saying: “If the word appears in the text, it is the Wild West.”
But some scientists said they were less concerned about the specific language around fossil fuels and focused more on whether or not the final text would include detailed plans for achieving real emissions reductions.
“There is no point in having endless debates about phasing out or phasing out,” Mr. Rockstrom said. “You need paragraphs with responsible, specific, scientifically based pathways for emission reductions in the coming decades.”