Weekly Climate Recap: COP Edition (part 1)
Given it is COP week, this edition will be somewhat a special issue, a bit of new formatting, a tad of difference in stories covered, let’s dive into it 😎.
What is COP
In case you weren’t aware, COP 28 is taking place from November 30 to December 12 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. COP 28, or by its full name, Conference of the Parties Twenty Eight, is the annual meetings where countries that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gather to discuss and negotiate actions to address global climate change. The meetings aim to assess progress, set goals, and negotiate agreements surrounding climate change. In laypersons terms, a yearly climate change progress touchpoint, in pop culture terms, the Coachella of climate change.
This year’s COP is massive in scale with a record number of delegates attending, 97k in person and 3k virtually. If you want to dive into the numbers behind who is attending, Carbon Brief has a great article summarizing. Another somewhat interesting but mostly depressing statistic: there are at least 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists registered for the summit, outnumbering the 1,609 delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries combined.
Climate’s biggest event bringing over 100k people together to discuss and work forward towards our climate goals means a lot of paperwork. If you want to keep up with the drafts being sent across, the progress on various articles, and just get a sense of what is happening, check out this interactive tool from Carbon Brief that allows you to track topics and see how much work is required on each item. My personal favourite note from the draft negotiating texts on international aviation and shipping:
“disagreement over whether to acknowledge disagreement”
The News
Put 100k climate focused individuals in a room and I suppose you’re bound to hear big talk. At about a week and a half in there has been a score of announcements, pledges, and drama at this year’s COP. I am trying to keep up with all of it and distill the key news below.
⚾ Loss and Damage Fund
Starting off incredibly strong with the new that agreement was reached on a loss and damage fund on day 1. The fund will go towards keeping up with the costs associated with extreme weather and impending disasters like sea level rise, ocean acidification, and melting glaciers. Initially the UAE and Germany pledged US$100m with an additional US$75m from the UK, US$24.5m from the US, and US$10m from Japan. Not to rain on the parade, but this is pennies compared to the ture cost, estimated at US$400B per year and expected to grow. Regardless, some money > 0.
☢️ Commitments to Nuclear
20 countries have launched the ‘Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050’ at COP on December 2 as covered by the Nuclear Energy Agency. Nuclear has been a little talked about topic at previous COPs due to public concerns on cost and safety. Notable absent from the list of signatories is China, which is far above the world in terms of installing nuclear capacity.
🤑 UAE Unveils US$30B Fund
The new fund, called Alterra, will divvy up the $30B with $25B going to climate strategies, dubbed Acceleration, and $5B to incentivize investment flows into the global south, denominated as Transform. Interestingly, the fund has partnered with BlackRock, TPG, and Brookfield as partners to allocate the initial $6.5B, going to the various funds that each company has.
🛢️ Without Fossil Fuels we will go Back to Caves?
I love drama. As such, I was incredibly excited to see the president of COP 28, Sultan Al Jaber stir the pot with respect to his comments on the future of fossil fuels. He made the statement that:
“Show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”
However, if you want to look at the president in a favourable light, his comments may actually be interpreted as accurate. An X thread (formerly Twitter), from Professor Joeri Rogelj, Climate Science and Policy at Imperial College London, has an analysis.
Regardless, this was an incredibly irresponsible statement to make as president of COP 28, made even more worrying is his position of leadership as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or ADNOC and as I covered previously, his aim to broker deals at COP.
🎯 The Pillars of COP as Suggested by the International Energy Agency
The IEA has weighed in with their perspectives on the pillars of COP. As covered in the World Energy Outlook 2023 report from the IEA, there are five key pillars to keep our dreams of 1.5C alive. (1) Triple renewables capacity, (2) Double energy efficiency progress, (3) Cut methane from fossil fuels by 75%, (4) Boost clean energy investment in emerging economies, (5) Ensure an orderly decline in fossil fuel use.
Checking in on these commitments so far:
- More than 100 nations commit to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 and double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements.
- Fossil fuel demand reduction talks hinge on one important word and an even more important prefix, abated vs unabated fossil fuels is a contentious issue, I could write a whole article on it (likely will) but for now: Carbon Brief has a great analysis
- Methane emissions seem to be making progress as well with some 50 O&G companies pledging to reduce methane emissions by 2030. Why is methane important? It is 80x worse than CO2 on a 20 year timescale.
⛄ 63 Countries Pledge to Curb Cooling Emissions
A host of countries joined together on Tuesday to commit to cutting cooling related emissions on Tuesday this week. The pledge aims to:
“Raise ambition and international cooperation through collective targets for reducing emissions, improving energy efficiency and climate-friendly approaches to cooling and increases access to sustainable cooling for the vulnerable.” — COP28
The pledge commit countries to reduce their cooling related emissions in 2050 by at least 68% compared to 2022. Given the expected tripling in installed capacity by 2050, the associated emissions with cooling must come down.
Conclusions So Far
As far as COPs go, this one seems to be going well. With major commitments, agreements, and progress on several very important fronts I view this as positive. Unfortunately, as always, these are extremely loose commitments and many of them are likely only symbolic in nature. Regardless, I will be holding my head high and expecting to see at least a few of the commitments come to fruition. Expect a similar format next week with the final conclusions, then back to regularly scheduled programming.
