Rod Oram: Words, crowds and Kiwis at global climate summit

Searching widely for ways to overcome deep opposition by fossil fuel nations to a phase-out of their products, the President of COP28 enlisted an ally while negotiators sought subtler language yesterday.

“We have been asked by the UAE presidency to help find common language that will be acceptable to all parties,” said Steven Guilbeault, once an NGO campaigner now Environment Minister of Canada, the world’s fourth largest oil producer. “This is what we will be doing in the coming days with many of our allies both north and south.”

“I am confident we have to leave Dubai and COP28 with some language on fossil fuels. Will it be everything we want it to be? We’ll have to see. Even if it’s not as ambitious as some would want, it would still be a historic moment. I’ve been coming to COP since COP1 in 1995 in Berlin. It would be the first time in almost 30 years of international negotiations that we can agree on language regarding fossil fuels.”

Some of the softer language coming out of the negotiations included tying a rapid expansion of renewables to fossil fuel “substitution’. But there were also calls for urgent words such as “”rapidly” and “acceleration” and timeframes such as “this decade”.

Three nations most strongly opposed to a phase-out are Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq, said Romain Ioualalen, a campaign leader at Oil Change International, an NGO campaigning to shut down fossil fuel industries

China and India don’t specifically oppose phase-out language, he added. But they’re against targeting a specific sector, particularly coal which they use far more heavily than do richer countries. Earlier this year both countries balked at fossil fuel language at the G20 summit declaration but they signed up to a tripling of  renewable energy capacity.

One of Ioualalen’s colleagues in the fight against fossil fuels is Wellington-based David Tong, Oil Change International’s Global Industry Campaign Manager.

This COP is seeing by far the biggest New Zealand contingent of any COP to date. All up there are some 200 people in the official delegation. Government staff and politicians account for only about 20, while the other 180 or so are civil society representatives from the likes of NGOs and businesses who are meeting all their own travel expenses.

In addition, there are many more Kiwis who have secured COP access through their own organisations at home and abroad. Likewise, I’m here independent of official delegation.

Given the vast programme of this COP, there are plenty of opportunities for Kiwis to contribute to sessions as hosts, speakers, audience and the like. For example, Pure Advantage and WWF NZ are launching Recloaking Papatūānuku, a highly ambitious native forest regeneration project which will be NZ’s largest nature-based solution to the climate crisis yet.

Miles Hurrell, chief executive of Fonterra, is speaking at a session entitled “Pathways to Dairy Net Zero” hosted by the Global Dairy Platform. This US-based organisation of major multinational dairy companies was founded by Andrew Ferrier when he was chief executive of Fonterra. Hurrell is its current chair.

Maori and Pasifika Kiwis are here in good numbers too, with the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion offering a rich programme of events.

But Aotearoa New Zealand is conspicuous by its absence in two crucial ways, diplomatic and promotional.

We don’t have a major role that, say, Denmark has even though its population is only slightly larger than ours. It’s paired with South Africa to co-chair the Global Stock Take, which will be the large core of the final COP28 agreement, through the final negotiations.

Nor do we have a country pavilion, as many nations our size or smaller have, to raise awareness of their climate work and to attract potential partners through an engaging variety of business, science, environmental, political, cultural and social events – often in collaboration with other countries. Again, Denmark sets a high benchmark for small countries.

Keeping track of the vast array of opportunities to meet and contribute, to learn and experience is quite a challenge. A very handy tool is the well-subscribed COP28 WhatsApp group for Kiwis here. It’s an invaluable way for us to stay in touch to share information, advice and reflections.

And indeed, a bit of social life too. Such as the dinner about a third of us in the group enjoyed on Tuesday. True to the Kiwi diaspora, we were from all over the world.

But we Kiwis aren’t even a rounding error in the total number of attendees. That passed 100,000 earlier this week with more arriving each day, making this by far the most-populous COP in its near-30-year history to date.

The big surge in COP attendance has come in just the past few years post-Covid. This is surely testament to the surging welter of human motivations and emotions the climate crisis engenders, ranging from fierce ambition to deep despair.

Of the people here at COP28, about 25 percent are officials in government delegations; 30 percent civil society members of those delegations; 15 percent from NGOs; 4 percent members of the media; 3 percent from the UN and other inter-government organisations; and 22 percent “others/staff”.

People tell plenty of stories about the challenge of navigating through this huge hui of humanity. Some of the noisiest complaints have come from senior executives of major companies who aren’t used to queuing for the likes of security screening.

Even some COP old hands express frustration and suggest COP should be pared back to officials only – a maximum, say of 20,000 of them meeting each year. Or more radically, meeting only in Bonn, where the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change is headquartered.

I believe that would be disastrous, for two reasons. Rotating COPs through the six UN regions of the world gives each host nation an opportunity to highlight its own climate opportunities and challenges, in its own distinctive way.

Worse, politicians and their officials would hunker down in an echo chamber, devoid of the daily, if fleeting, exposure they get to the people they serve as they weave their way through COP crowds to their negotiating rooms.

At least this COP28 venue has an array of massive buildings, laid out on a spacious campus. That’s because it uses the Dubai Exhibition Centre and the adjacent Expo2020 site which included many permanent facilities. All these, thankfully, are climate controlled. Although it’s mid-winter in Dubai, the high each day is often near 30C.

This venue is a welcome relief from the extensive use of temporary structures to supplement permanent exhibition facilities at COP26 in Glasgow and COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Which country hosts COP29 next year is still unresolved. Each of the UN’s geographic regions takes it in turn, and Eastern Europe is up next. But Russian is blocking any country that does not support it.

Yesterday, Azerbaijan said it was willing to host it, with its neighbour Armenia saying it would not object. This was a diplomatic breakthrough since their border’s closed and they’re been hostile neighbours for years because of disputed territory.

If Azerbaijan is approved by all the countries in its region, it would be the second petrostate in a row to host COP. And one lacking the physical and financial resources or the diplomatic skills the United Arab Emirates brings to this COP.