2023-12-06 19:51:03
As the ministers arrive in Dubai to pilot the COP28 towards a landing zone, and following a controversy surrounding statements by the president of the conference, Washington is calling for “seriousness”.
“It’s time for adults to behave like adults,” said US Representative John Kerry in Dubai on Wednesday. Halfway through the COP28, this outing made on Wednesday during a press conference was aimed, without naming them, at the defenders of interests linked to fossil fuels who were working to prevent this conference from reaching conclusions that were too clear on a gradual phasing out of their use.
It was time to take stock of the progress, as ministers began to flock to the Emirati city to take the helm and direct the negotiations towards their landing zone. Unprecedented fact, this COP will have been marked from its opening by an agreement on a sensitive subject: the operational establishment of a new fund to support vulnerable countries hit by the climate crisis. Even if the amounts collected are not on the scale of needs, this progress will have sent a positive breath into the sails of the negotiations.
“We have a starting text on the table… But it’s a bag of wish lists and a lot of posturing.”
But at the heart of the negotiation, Dubai is slipping. “Regarding the global assessment, we have an initial text on the table… But it is a bag of wish lists and a lot of posturing,” indicated the secretary general of UN Climate Change, Simon Steill. For this first “assessment” since the Paris Agreement, the COP is supposed indicate as clearly as possible the directions to be taken to achieve the objectives. The terms of a gradual elimination of fossil fuels are at the heart of the issue, but including this objective in the conclusions of COP28 remains far from certain.
The President of the Conference, the Emirati Sultan Al-Jaber, is under pressure following the broadcast of ambiguous statements over the weekend. Reacting to this subject, American envoy John Kerry gave his translation on Wednesday of the message from IPCC scientists, who indicate that the 1.5°C objective requires at least 43% reductions globally for 2030 ( compared to 1990) and net zero emissions for 2050: “We think this means we need to make a gradual exit [de la consommation de combustibles fossiles], there is no other way to achieve this goal“, he estimated. And the American councilor got excited in front of an audience of journalists regarding the need to overcome this blockage – “Come on! It’s time to get serious and do as much as we can.”
Renewable ambition progresses
The European Union, for its part, sought to impose in the final conclusions a collective commitment to triple the installed capacity of renewable energies during this decade and to double energy efficiency. At the end of the first week of negotiations, 126 countries supported his call to this effect. It remains to be seen to what extent the EU can convince more, and if it will be enough to set the ambition in a final COP28 text, and send a signal to investors.
Around twenty countries, from the United States to France, including Japan, have also launched a call for triple nuclear capacity by 2050. And the commitment to reduce methane emissions by 30% over the decade has also gained new signatories (there are 150 States). Achieving this objective would be equivalent to eliminating all transport emissions over this period, John Kerry stressed on Wednesday. Methane, particularly emitted along the oil and gas production and distribution chain, is a more powerful insulator than CO2, but it remains ten times less long in the atmosphere.
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