What’s new in the final COP28 agreement
The final COP28 agreement provides for the gradual move away from all fossil fuels: not only from coal as in the past, but also from oil and gas. All the details
COP28, the United Nations climate conference in Dubai, concluded today with an agreement that contains for the first time a commitment to gradually move away from the use of fossil fuels for energy production. This removal – transitioning away is the original expression – must be “fair, orderly and equitable”; but the transition to clean sources will have to accelerate in the coming years "in order to reach net zero by 2050" and limit global warming. Net zero ( net-zero ) refers to a condition of carbon neutrality, i.e. a balance between the emissions produced and those captured, removed from the atmosphere or compensated with specific technologies.
THE FINAL AGREEMENT IS A VICTORY FOR THE EMIRATES…
The agreement is considered a diplomatic victory for Ahmed al Jaber, the Emirati sultan who was president of COP28 but also CEO of the oil company ADNOC.
On the one hand, in fact, the final text expresses concepts ambitious enough to satisfy the European Union and the United States, which are focusing heavily on the ecological transition; on the other hand, however, it does not contain expressions that are too strong and therefore unwelcome to oil-exporting countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates themselves. In fact, the document speaks of a "gradual move away" from fossil fuels ( transitioning away ) rather than their "gradual elimination" ( phase-out ).
… AND FOR THE GLOBAL TRANSITION FROM ALL FOSSIL FUELS
At the same time, it is also true that in no other final agreement of the COP has there ever been reference to the need to distance ourselves from all fossil fuels, including oil and natural gas, on which the global economy still depends today. At COP26 in 2021, for example, the transition ( phase down , in that case) was limited to coal, the most emitting but also the cheapest fossil fuel.
WHAT COP28 WAS FOR RENEWABLES AND NUCLEAR
The text then includes commitments to triple the installations of renewable capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency by the end of the decade. Furthermore, during the conference, twenty-two countries – including the United States, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Japan and South Korea – signed a declaration to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050.
AND IN CONCRETE?
As the president of COP28, al Jaber, recalled, “an agreement is only as good as its implementation. We are what we do, not what we say. We must take the necessary steps to turn this agreement into tangible actions."
According to Jonathan Pershing, a former US climate negotiator and now a member of the Hewlett Foundation, the language of the conference, with its call to move away from fossil fuels, sends "a signal" to the market that the international community is not having second thoughts about the transition energy: this could change investors' attitude towards fossil assets, writes Bloomberg .
The 2024 climate conference will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, another fossil fuel exporting country.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/cop28-accordo-finale/ on Wed, 13 Dec 2023 13:07:02 +0000.