Everything You Need to Know About COP28 Summit

Carbon emissions to the atmosphere originating from human activities cause our planet to warm up. Now climate crisis is not a warning for the future, but a fact of our present day. However, we are still at the critical threshold; in other words, we still have the power to save our world’s climate and atmosphere. “Conference of the Parties,” or Climate Change Conference, which is organized in different countries every year with this awareness, was organized for the 28th time in Dubai.

The conference, commonly known as COP28, was led by Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Petroleum Company, one of the biggest fossil fuel producers in the world, and this situation has made COP28 controversial.

What is COP Summit?

COP Summit is short for Conference of the Parties. It is organized every year by the United Nations. All signatory countries of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international convention which came into effect in 1994, participate in the conference. Parties to the convention commit to take voluntary measures for the purpose of “preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference” with the climate system. “COP Summit” represents the review and application process of all parties, including world leaders and state presidents, and rules of the convention.

Why is COP Summit Important?

First COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March 1995. From the first summit until today, many important decisions have been taken. Such as COP3 at which Kyoto Protocol has been accepted, COP11 at which Montreal Action Plan has been created, COP15 held in Copenhagen and COP17 at which Fund has been established. COP21 also played an important role in the fight against global climate crisis at which Paris Agreement has been signed which aims to take action to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C above the levels of pre-industrial periods by the year 2100.

What are the Priorities of COP28 Climate Change Conference?

1. Creating a more inclusive and accessible conference,
2. Supporting climate crisis solutions,
3. Focusing on Global Goal Conditions and adaptation financing,
4. Providing more equitable access to climate financing.

COP28 summit’s agenda consists of incrementally moving away from fossil fuels and renewable energy targets. The expectation across the world is to have effective decisions taken at COP28 to enable an equitable and incremental phasing out fossil fuels, including coal, petroleum, and natural gas, with the purpose of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

COP28 is also a summit at which the very first Global Stocktake will take place, in other words, an evaluation of our status and progress measured against the goals adopted at the Paris Agreement.

Collective Decisions Taken at the COP28 Summit:

1. Taking the decision to transition away from fossil fuels in a just, equitable and incremental manner.
2. Setting the goal of installing a global annual renewable energy of 1.5 Terawatt (TW) as of 2030.
3. Including technological means to reach the goal of 1.5°C as shown recently by IPCC.

Supporting all three targets with financing and providing accountability and concrete follow-up constitute the main subjects. An annual investment of $4.5 trillion is required for clean energy efficiency assessed by IPCC and IEA and for the target of 1.5°C with renewable energy.

Although this financing requirement seems like a large amount, this is not a cost but an investment. Investment in renewable and sustainable green energy provides many benefits in environmental, social, and economic terms such as decrease in fossil fuel importation prices, significant reduction in health care costs, and prevention of climate damages and air pollution caused by fossil fuels.

COP28 Controversy: UAE and Al Jaber

Although COP 28 Summit was criticized for not determining a clear timetable, an agreement has been reached for the very first time in a climate summit agreement text on the necessity of transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energies.

Moreover COP 28, which was held in a petroleum state under the presidency of a petroleum CEO, inevitably witnessed an intense controversy on “science” and “facts”. In a meeting he participated in one month before COP 28, Al Jaber had alleged that the argument claiming that fossil fuel phase-out is a requirement to limit global warming to 1.5°C had “no science behind it.”

Al Jaber argued that development would be impossible without fossil fuels, that this would take humanity “back into caves.” Climate activists described these comments as “Putting Dracula in charge of blood bank.”

In a BBC news piece based on leaked briefing documents before the start of COP28, it was alleged that UAE was planning to use COP 28 to make oil deals.

Al Jaber denied all the allegations about the existence of a conflict of interest in the situation as well as using COP 28 for making fossil fuel deals and claimed that he has never seen the briefing documents in question.

UAE Tried to Take the Attention Away from Fossil Fuels

All these developments, lack of confidence in the summit president and criticisms created a great pressure on both UAE and Al Jaber to prevent COP 28 to go down in history as a “failure”.

However, the first move of the host of the conference was to announce, one after another, agreements that create a sense of gain without touching the subject of reduction in fossil fuel production which is the key issue in climate change. The devil lied in the details in these agreements that played a role to show fossil fuel companies as positive actors: The net zero commitment in the agreement covered only operational emissions. However almost 90 percent of the emissions caused by fossil fuel companies emerge during the utilization of the products and this stage is not part of the deal.

Another agreement, which was agreed on the same day and welcomed with great enthusiasm, was signed by 118 countries, and the signatory countries pledged to triple their renewable energy capacities and double their energy efficiencies.

In short, according to the experts and climate activists, UAE aimed with this “wind of good news” to take the attention away from the key issue which is to come to a clear agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.

OPEC and Saudi Arabia Pressure:

During COP 28, the most palpable pressure of fossil fuel lobby came undoubtedly from OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and Saudi Arabia, which is the second biggest petroleum producer in the world at the leadership position of OPEC. In a leaked letter sent to OPEC members, Saudi Arabia was warning the members about how the pressures on fossil fuels in COP 28 were about to reach a tipping point. In the letter, members were asked to “proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy, i.e., fossil fuels.”

However, the emergence of the letter lit the blue touch paper at the summit and was seen as OPEC “going into panic”. And going against the insistences of especially Saudi Arabia and Russia, fossil fuel clause was written in the final text. More than 100 insistent countries were effective in this clause being included in the text.

Gains from COP28

Deliberations went through with struggles between climate activists and fossil fuel interest groups. An agreement was reached on December 13th. Although the clause of “fossil fuel phase out” included in the agreement text was not as clear as the climate movement desired, a name was given to the enemy for the very first time in 30 years of climate struggle and the name of “fossil fuel” was cited.

“Net zero” emission goal in 2050 was emphasized. The key importance of 2020s was underlined. Calls were made to all countries in the agreement text to triple their renewable energy capacities and to double their energy efficiencies by 2030.

Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President, commented on COP28 saying that fossil fuel lobby has used all its power to influence the result, however they had failed to be effective enough thanks to the pressure created by millions of climate activists from all around the world.

We should point out that there is not enough time left to be happy about the small gains from COP28! We have only six years left for the goal stipulated in Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5°C (according to a new study). This critical period of six years requires us to put up a more active fight against disinformation and greenwashing tactics of fossil fuel capital.