It was inaugurated yesterday Cop 28 in Dubai. In the kingdom of oil, where the energy waste of ski slopes artificially maintained by air conditioning coexists with endless solar fields, what risks being the most contested climate summit since 1995. 28 years have passed since the first Conference of the Parties, hence the acronym COP (Conference of Parties), where parties indicates the approximately 200 states that participate. This year world leaders and their ministers are meeting in the United Arab Emirates and the financial match could outweigh the stakes of climate goals. In fact, as usually happens every five years, this year's summit is aimed at drawing up a global assessment to test the effectiveness of the 2015 Paris Agreement in tackling the major climate challenges. As before, the Summit recognizes that despite progress, the world is off track in meeting targets. Since the advent of these conferences the world has pumped more into the atmosphere than the emissions released in all the previous centuries. And every year – with the exception of the year of the financial crisis of 2008 and the year of the lockdown – they are increasing compared to the previous period. 2022 also sets a record and “no end in sight” according to the World Meteorological Organization. Instead of a healthy exercise in self-awareness by questioning the reasons for failure, we prefer to further raise the bar of decarbonization objectives which from challenging become decidedly unachievable.
Cop 28 Dubai: the financial match on the Loss & Damage fund
In the next two weeks, after the long-awaited message from the Pontiff who will urge humanity to do more and the intervention of Charles of England, an early environmentalist but sovereign of a nation whose government has decided to postpone some green targets considered irreconcilable with the growth of the country, the negotiations will focus on the flow of money that will have to fuel the Loss & Damage fund. This fund, an achievement obtained by poor countries at the previous COP in Sharm el-Sheikh, must serve to make decarbonisation a just transition and not an additional burden on the fragile economies of those regions of the world that are emerging from poverty. These represent 14% of the world population but account for 1% of emissions. Practically the annual per capita consumption of electricity is equivalent to the kilowatt-hour absorption of a large Western refrigerator. The establishment of the fund should have been followed, within the following 12 months, by the definition of criteria and methods for establishing compensation. Basically who pays and how much. But nothing was done about it. The agreement is therefore unavoidable to close COP28 with dignity. Or it will be a glaring failure.
Cop 28 Dubai: the battle is also about words
If there is a battle over figures, in Dubai there will also be a battle over words. In the final text of the negotiation, the commitment of "theelimination of fossil fuels”? It is more likely that he will fall back on the vague promise of a “gradual reduction of fossil fuels“. Not only because the rotating president of the conference is Sultan al-Jaber, head of the renewable energy activities of the United Arab Emirates and also CEO of ADNOC the state oil company, but because the world is still about 80% powered by oil, gas and coal. To get out of it, the word phase out on an agreement is not enough.
