#COP28 Day 10: OPEC may be in panic
Should we be surprised, or do we need to be better at seeing our way through the long game?
WaPo reports OPEC, the trade block of Middle East oil states, is ‘panicking.’ Wasn’t this to be expected if there is now reasonable pressure to include the language phase out or phase down? The language will be significant, despite likelihood I noted previously that it will be watered down with ambiguity.
The situation underscores two things. The first is that single nation can block any COP statement, but may face embarrassment when they do. OPEC, as a block of middle eastern oil states like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and UAE, will fare better if they collectively block language than allow the last hold outs to be singled out. They face a problem however that they do not produce the bulk of the world’s oil, and the US now outproduces all other nations.
As an Earth Sciences student in the US, it was always painfully obvious to me that there was far more oil that could some day be affordably extracted from the earth than we could afford to put in the atmosphere. The long game is that oil companies and oil states seem to think they’ve somehow bought time (perhaps a decade or more) when they can pump the oil and gas they already have on their books ready to go into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Reasonable and accessible models, summarised authoritatively by IPCC, say we can’t. The phase out needs to begin now, and delays need to be matched with carbon dioxide removals that could become increasingly expensive.
These two points create a dilemma we all need to better keep in mind and solve.
The high stakes dilemma is the stressful and uncertain narrative of our times: ‘to burn or not to burn’ fossil fuel reserves exceeding 1.5°C
There are high stakes, and that’s why we need a high level of integrity that keeps our governments focussed on truth, transparency and the long game. The political cycle may not help, and Rebekah White has published a piece underscoring that leaked workings of our new Cabinet suggest the rush enact political gambles without any long-term analysis could be the worst in our post-Muldoon history. The obvious concern about the leak also was captured in political cartoons – with Sharon Murdoch capturing the obvious concern about how politics intersects with long-term planning.
The dilemma is not unique to climate change
Many of the most challenging issues of our times are similar. Common elements are natural limits, time lags, and difficulty switching to technology or new ways of doing things that allow us to live well within the limits. Water quality in New Zealand is similar to climate change - a classic politically unstable diffuse source pollution problem, yet one that is harder to measure and with variation between catchments.
Each issue can offer insights on the others, by running across the grain of politics. Housing bubbles provide an example many people in New Zealand can now relate to. There may be lessons to be learned from the observation that left-leaning municipalities in the US tend to worsen housing inequality.
An issue that quickly turns into a third rail in discussion is population, yet this issue can also provide insights. It seems, particularly if you hear the pain in Ezra Klein’s voice when he talks about it, that having an average number of children for a replacement population (i.e., 2 or 3 kids) is far from ideal, particularly when parents have been displaced by the careers they value from their extended family. Today on RNZ Sunday Morning, a couple challenged conventional discussions and pointed out that policies might be better to plan for people having no children or lots of children, rather than just one, two or three.
These solutions are found on the edges of big problems rather than in the middle. Each problem may have two or more very different solutions – which can be far more viable than ‘average’ solutions or long-term silver bullets. Coming back to COP28, the world might have done well to heed the warning sooner Sultan Al Jaber, now the awkward president of COP28, had failed miserably in his previous attempt to find such solutions. His multi-billion build out of an eco-city imagined bespoke subway pods for the role now filled by e-scooters. The failure it represents will likely receive many reports – it is too big to hide.
Seeing past failures should illuminate the search for better ways to help society understand and decide on stable strategies for the long-running dilemmas that we face. Better analysis and transparency will help, and that’s why I’m here. Let’s not forget there is likely to be another needed ingredient too…
Diversity and inclusion is not just a statistic?
Historians may use COP28 President Al Jaber to represent is the failure that comes from failing to include diversity in leadership. Women are the most visible measure, and are missing in leadership and decision-making roles at COP28. Yet, successful and innovative efforts often have women at the top. For example two women led the biggest breakthrough win at last year’s COP – the fund for loss and damage. (Read more at WaPo, or find the AP syndicated article by Uzi Athar)
Why are international negotiations such a mess?
Here’s an amusing twitter thread that helps us all understand why international negotiations are such a challenge. It also makes me wonder why we think having more than 100,000 people assembled for COP is useful. (I also feel a need to reclaim ‘environmental integrity’ as a global concept from the Swiss characature in the thread – the Swiss may do a rather good job with it within their own nation, but raise questions with their global conglomerates.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Sunday pondering on COP28. Please comment, subscribe and let others know who may enjoy these notes and links.