The 28th annual conference of the parties or COP28 will take place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December, with finance set to be one of the main cornerstones along with technology, innovation, inclusion, and frontline communities.
The main message by many is that the planet is heading toward climate disaster, and governments are acting too slowly to avert the crisis.
Diplomats from nearly 200 countries, and several heads of state and government, will gather to try to draft a plan to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels.
To date, little progress has been made and there are concerns that the needle will not move that much further.
This is because the United Arab Emirates, the world’s fifth-largest oil producer, is hosting the climate talks with Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. appointed as president-designate.
In May, over 100 members of the European parliament and US Congress wrote to the UN to urge that Al Jaber be replaced, arguing that his role would enable fossil fuel companies to “exert undue influence” on climate negotiations.
Former US vice-president Al Gore followed up this summer by lambasting Jaber’s “blatant conflict of interest” in a widely viewed TED talk.
Al Jaber has argued in the press that his role in the oil industry made him uniquely well placed to corral that sector into supporting climate action.
He set out the UAE’s COP28 Action Plan which includes the global stocktake, the first formal assessment of whether nations are on track to meet a goal they set in Paris in 2015 to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
At the moment, studies have shown that the planet has in fact already warmed by 1.2 degrees C and emissions that are driving the change are rising, and not declining. The hope is that the review will lay the groundwork for ambitious actions countries must adopt going forward.
There is also an expectation that countries will finalise the so-called “loss and damage” fund created last year at COP 27 which took place in Egypt.
The fund aims to help vulnerable countries rebuild social and physical infrastructure after extreme weather events exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) pumped into the atmosphere by industrialised nations.
So far, no country has made a specific financial pledge to the fund, although earlier this month, the European Union said it will make a “substantial” financial contribution to the fund.
The other goal is for nations to reach a political agreement to replace polluting fossil fuels with clean energy such as wind and solar power.
The recent negotiations between US and China highlight some of the challenges that might be encountered. On the one hand, many applaud the efforts by both countries to back global efforts to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, accelerate the domestic build out of green power to replace coal, oil and gas, and advance cooperation to limit emissions of nitrous oxide and methane.
However, although China installed solar and wind at a record pace this year, doubts have been cast over its ability to meet its pledge to bring its climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions to a peak before 2030.
This is because there are dozens of new coal-fired power stations being built to meet rising energy demand and avoid a repeat of the disruptive power outages that hit the country in 2021.
Meanwhile, in the US, ambitious plans for offshore wind power have been derailed by the failure of several large projects.
This includes Danish developer Ørsted’s decision to pull two offshore projects in New Jersey, due to soaring costs.
As a result the Biden administration’s plan to increase offshore wind generation capacity by 2030 will not be met, according to industry experts. They have warned that the sector needed a reset to become economically viable.
The White House has set a goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030 — enough to power 10m homes — and has made the target central to its plans to slash carbon pollution.
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