Nearly a month after COP28, where over 200 countries gathered alongside several stakeholders to deliberate and decide on the path we must follow in the coming years to save this planet, most voices, including experts and indigenous groups, agree that it was not enough. The 2400 fossil fuel lobbyists that outnumbered all the other delegations, except perhaps the ones from UAE and Brazil, should give a very good idea of the result of COP28.
Even though droughts and storms devastated different parts of the world in the weeks following COP28, there was significant progress in instituting the Loss and Damage fund, which will assist those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. While a significant step, the millions pledged to help developing countries adapt fall a little short of the billions needed to finance a transition to clean energy in most developing countries. Global temperatures will likely exceed preindustrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius by around 2026 rather than in the far future that many would still like to believe.
As many experts have pointed out, this was the first time that “Fossil fuels” were explicitly held responsible for global warming, which sounds very strange, but better late than never. Acknowledging the cause of global warming is a good first step in eliminating this problem. However, the final agreement contains a number of loopholes and odd semantics that allow most countries to continue to expand and produce fossil fuels. For instance, the wording of “transition away” instead of “phasing out” fossil fuels or the fact that natural gas has been recognised as a transition fuel allowing many countries to actually expand natural gas production.
Fortunately, many countries are taking actions independently, such as the commitments from Italy and France that each promised about $108 million (almost five times that of the US), Canada’s plan to cut emissions, or the EU’s new laws on green financing. 2023 also saw unprecedented growth in the renewable energy sector, with China leading by almost doubling its renewable energy capacity since 2016. With China cracking that 1TW of renewable energy threshold, Europe is also making strides with 60-100GW of additional projects set to be deployed in the next few years. The EU Commission is also working on optimising the European power grid and perhaps making the transition more equitable.
While the COP28 was not the revolutionary change that was needed, it has recognised the source of the problem, and that is a good first step in putting more pressure on developed countries and the oil and gas industry to cut emissions and create a way to bridge the immense finance gap that will allow most of the world to also transition to cleaner energy before it is too late.
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Abhimanyu Dasgupta
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