But many climate scientists said the joyful sentiments of world leaders did not accurately reflect the limited ambition of the agreement.
- 'Weak tea at best' -
Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized the vagueness of the fossil fuel statement, which has no firm, accountable boundaries for how much countries should do by when.
"The agreement to 'transition away from fossil fuels' was weak tea at best," he told AFP. "It's like promising your doctor that you will 'transition away from donuts' after being diagnosed with diabetes. The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating."
Mann called for a substantial reform of the COP rules, for example permitting super-majorities to approve decisions over the objections of holdout petro states like Saudi Arabia, and barring oil executives such as COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber from presiding over future summits.
"Mend it, don't end it," he said. "We still need to continue with the COPs. They are our only multilateral framework for negotiating global climate policies.
"But the failure of COP28 to achieve any meaningful progress at a time when our window of opportunity to limit warming below catastrophic levels is closing, is a source of great concern."
- 'Death knell for 1.5C' -
"No doubt there will be lots of cheer and back-slapping... but the physics will not care," said Kevin Anderson, a professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester.
Humanity has between five and eight years of emissions at the current level before blowing through the "carbon budget" required to hold long term warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius needed to avert the worst impacts of long term planetary heating, he said.
Even if emissions begin to go down in 2024, which is not a requirement of the text, we would need to have zero fossil fuel use globally by 2040, rather than the "fraudulent language of net zero by 2050" envisaged in the deal, said Anderson.
He described it as a "death knell" for 1.5C, with even the less ambitious target of 2C, which carries a significant risk for triggering dangerous tipping points in global climate systems, becoming more distant.
- 'Many will die' -
Friederike Otto, a climatologist and leader in the field of assessing the role of climate change on specific extreme weather events, was equally damning.
"It's hailed as a compromise, but we need to be very clear what has been compromised," said Otto, who lectures at The Grantham Institute for Climate Change. "The short-term financial interest of a few have again won over the health, lives and livelihoods of most people living on this planet."
"With every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter the frontline of climate change and many will die."
But Johan Rockstrom, a professor in environmental science who directs the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, argued that while the COP would not hold the world to 1.5C warming it was still a "pivotal land-mark."
"This agreement delivers on making it clear to all financial institutions, businesses and societies that we are now finally -- eight years behind the Paris schedule -- at the true "beginning of the end" of the fossil-fuel driven world economy," he said.
Fossil focus: key points of the Dubai climate deal
Paris (AFP) Dec 13, 2023 -
After nearly three decades of dancing around the chief driver of global warming, UN climate negotiations in oil-rich United Arab Emirates on Wednesday called for the first time for the world to "transition away" from polluting fossil fuels.
The landmark first for the UN process was laid out in a text designed to respond to the failure so far to meet the Paris deal's more ambitious -- and safer -- goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels.
Agreed by almost 200 countries, the COP28 decision "marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era", said analyst Dave Jones of energy thinktank Ember.
It also calls on countries to come up with more ambitious climate commitments from next year.
But it leaves "a lot of room for interpretation", said UN climate chief Simon Stiell, warning that "loopholes leave us vulnerable to fossil fuel vested interests, which could crash our ability to protect people everywhere against rising climate impacts".
Here are the key points:
- Fossils -
Fossil fuels drive some three quarters of all human-caused emissions.
But recognition of the need to stop burning all of them is "unprecedented" in the UN climate talks, said David Waskow at the World Resources Institute.
COP28 calls for a "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science".
Observers said another positive was reference to "this decade" -- a crucial timeframe given that the UN's IPCC climate science panel says emissions must be slashed almost in half by 2030 to keep 1.5C in sight.
COP28 retained language from the Glasgow climate conference two years ago, where negotiators ultimately agreed to "phasedown" unabated coal power -- meaning without technology to capture emissions.
- Renewables -
The Dubai text calls for: "Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030".
The International Energy Agency has forecast that world demand for oil, gas and coal would peak this decade thanks to the "spectacular" growth of cleaner energy technologies, like wind, solar and batteries, as well as electric vehicles.
In September, the G20 -- accounting for some 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions -- broke new ground in endorsing the renewables goal.
"For the first time, the world has recognised the scale of ambition required this decade to build the new clean energy system: a tripling of renewables and doubling of efficiency improvements," said Jones.
The text also gave electric vehicles a boost, calling on countries to move faster to reduce road transport emissions.
- 'Loopholes?' -
Observers raised concerns that the call to move away from fossil fuels was only within the energy sector, leaving out reference to polluting plastics and fertilisers.
The text also says "transitional fuels can play a role" in the shift to clean power -- a reference to gas.
It also includes "removal technologies", particularly in sectors where decarbonisation is particularly challenging, like cement production.
Technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) -- where emissions are captured at source from power plants or factories and injected deep in geological reservoirs or reused -- have been touted by hydrocarbon producers.
But experts say they will play only a minor role in decarbonising during this decade.
Friederike Roder, vice president policy and advocacy at Global Citizen, said carbon capture and transition fuels were "distractions and loopholes".
- Finance -
COP28 noted the "growing gap" -- estimated at almost $7.5 trillion to 2030 -- between the needs of developing countries facing increasing climate impacts and mounting debts, and the help provided for them to achieve their climate goals.
But observers noted a lack of detail, setting the stage for finance to become the key issue for 2024, both at COP29 talks to be held next year in Azerbaijan, and in other areas like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"The phase out of fossil fuels will only be possible with the right financing package for poor and vulnerable nations," said Roder.
She commended the decision text for its reference to taxation as one new potential source of climate funding.
COP28 also launched the landmark "loss and damage" fund to help countries cope with climate disasters, with funding up to $792 million as of Wednesday.
But adaptation funding to help nations build their resilience to future impacts has fallen short in recent years and Roder said the COP28 reiteration of a promise to double adaptation spending amounted to "no progress".
- Nature -
COP28 emphasised the importance of nature protections in line with achieving the Paris goals and made specific reference to the role of "halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030".
The International Union for Conservation of Nature welcomed the "strong recognition of the contribution of nature" in the COP28 deal.
Related Links
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
