Politicians won’t close ‘dire, dismal and awful’ gaps in climate deal

Analysis: The United Nations’ COP28 climate negotiations have begun their final phase with only five days or so left to agree a wide range of measures designed to accelerate nations’ climate responses in coming years.

While the draft text prepared by government officials over the past week has some important breakthroughs, it also has some significant gaps. The politicians taking over the negotiations today are unlikely to fill them in the time left.

The centrepiece will be the first Global Stocktake mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement. It will report on nations’ climate commitments and progress since then. Those, however, are falling far short of the 2015 goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 2C, or better 1.5C.

Thus, the stocktake will include multiple decisions designed to ramp up nations’ efforts on mitigation, adaptation, energy, finance, technology, support for developing countries and other crucial topics.

The phase-out of fossil fuels will be the most fiercely debated subject in this section of the final agreement. More than 100 countries pushing for it will clash with adamantly opposed petro-states. Rapid and deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions are critical to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency and other authoritative bodies report.

Fossil fuel companies came to COP summits to talk about prolonging their industry, said Andrew Forrest, the Australian mining magnate and green hydrogen champion. “But we invented COPs to save the planet, not save a few businesses.”

Overall there are more than 80 options in the stocktake section of the draft text. But many are simply bullet points. Thus, hammering out the final Global Stocktake text will consume a lot of negotiating time. December 12 is the official end of COP28. But as with prior COPs, negotiations will likely run a day or so longer.

Slow adaptation

By far the biggest hole in the draft text is the absence of the hoped-for Global Goal on Adaptation. Fundamental issues prevented progress, such as a lack of standardised ways to measure the climate resilience of nations. Thus, this crucial subject has been postponed to next year’s COP agenda.

“This is dire, dismal and awful,” says Jennifer Allen, a strategic adviser with Earth Negotiations Bulletin, an independent reporting service on UN environment and development negotiations, which is run by the Canadian-based International Institute for Sustainable Development.

“If we can’t progress adaption, then loss and damage will only get worse.”

Agreement on the first day of COP28 on a finance facility to help developing countries meet the costs of economic losses and physical damage caused by the escalating climate crisis is a major achievement. But the sums pledged so far by developed countries are a tiny fraction of the finance required.

The draft text is also weak on nature, agriculture and food, three critical areas that were given heightened prominence in this COP’s programme.

Again, fundamental disagreements thwarted progress, Dr Allen says, such as whether the focus in agriculture should be on climate mitigation (reducing emissions), or on adapting to climate impacts (such as higher temperatures and more droughts) or on both.

Agricultural emissions

Outside the negotiations, COP28 is producing myriad initiatives. For example, the Dairy Methane Action Alliance was launched by six major international dairy companies partnering with the US Environmental Defense Fund, a non-governmental organisation.

The six – Nestlé, Danone, Kraft Heinz, Latalis USA, General Mills and Groupe Bel – will begin reporting their methane emissions by mid-next year and will produce methane action plans by the end of the year.

Fonterra is not a member of the new alliance. But it has discussed its climate plans, unveiled at its AGM in November, with the Environmental Defense Fund to see how they might align with alliance’s programme.

Air transport

At a COP28 side event, Christchurch International Airport was in a group of 10 airports from around the world that were acknowledged for being the first to achieve a new, highest level of carbon accreditation from the Airports Council International.

This required them, for example, to have already made at least a 90 percent cut in their own emissions; and to commit to net zero emissions by 2050 ,including those of the flights using their airports.

Christchurch airport had cut its own emissions to 216 tonnes of CO2 per year at the latest count, says Claire Waghorn, its sustainability transition leader. Actions included installing ground-sourced heat pumps to heat and cool the terminals. But emissions from the flights it serves are some 900,000 tonnes a year.

To power the first electric planes when they start arriving mid this decade, the airport is planning a 170MW solar farm with Contact Energy, Lightsource, a subsidiary of BP, the oil company, and Environment Canterbury. Construction is due to start early next year.

It is also working on plans for a 300MW plant to produce green hydrogen for the first aircraft using that fuel, which are expected late this decade.

Worldwide, investment in plants to make sustainable aviation fuel for conventional aircraft is starting to scale up, says Olivier Jankovec, head of ACI’s Europe region. Though the current tally of some 130 fuel plants in 30 countries will only meet 0.1 percent of current aviation fuel demand when they begin production.

“Just in Europe, we need 6 percent of fuel to be SAF by 2030 to meet the goal the global aviation industry has set,” he adds.