#COP28 Day 14: "Transitioning away from fossil fuels"
... and "phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies"; plus more on CCC final advice
BREAKING: The deal was struck, unexpectedly with agreement on this text.
Watch - Closing Plenary in Progress
Why was agreement reached so suddenly?
Shortly after declaring the decision the #COP28 UAE consensus, Samoa takes the floor and notes that the 39 nation alliance of small island states was out of the room coordinating when the decision was adopted. Their statement was applauded and proceedings moved on. (View the moment on Youtube)
Posted earlier
The latest COP28 draft text containing updates of the controversial phrasing came out in recent hours and is now getting reported on. The language is a marked improvement, although it does not use “phasing out” specifically for fossil fuels, the use of “transitioning away” may assuage low-income nations seeking a path to development and funding for alternative energy.
“Phasing out” is applied to “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.” But included with it are well meaning words that provide ways out. (Update: Katharine Hayhoe notes this language was in the COP26 final text, also has other comments)
The recognition of these steps will be the strongest yet, if adopted by the required consensus of all nations. However, the action word, “calls on,” is still only moderately better than previous versions implying actions are optional – which deeply undermined the previous draft with many nations and activists. Initial reports suggest many loopholes still raise concern.
I’ll provide an progress chart like those I updated repeatedly in the last post from CarbonBrief’s Simon Evans if it appears (or check his twitter feed).
Let’s remind ourselves why this is hard
I think raising more discussion about what COP is and how it works is useful for understanding what the process can and can’t do, and how it can be made better. I continue to think a much smaller, more focussed COP, that still retains safe space for students, experts and activists would be an improvement.
While waiting for the excruciatingly slow progress, here’s an article that provides the perspective and direction of two young leaders working to understand, improve or replace parts of the process.
However, the international process is also hard because of what happens within nations, and we’re now hitting the bumps in the road that demonstrate the difficulty.
Two roads diverge – from the CCC advice
Reporting has now dug into Climate Change Commission’s final advice, released last night. Almost everyone notices that we’re now going to struggle to meet the 2026-2030 emissions budget with policies being set in coming years. That’s a problem because the new Government plans to rollback almost every significant policy, while still claiming targets will be met.
Newsroom’s Marc Daalder wins my prize for describing just how “awkward” the situation is becoming. His keen eyes (which are just celebrating their 5-year anniversary of landing in NZ) use Prof Robert McLachlan’s framing to say that it’s like we’re “living in dreamland” since roughly September. The dream turns into a nightmare only if once you get past the political soundbites and look at the maths, policy by policy. Marc lists several and BusinessDesk (paywalled) puts added detail to the divergence on agricultural mitigation policy.
Running the numbers and providing transparency is exactly what the Climate Change Commission is for, at least for the broad strokes that help us maintain the integrity that tends to be lost without an independent commission or body.
Marc Daalder also points out that you might miss the real stories in the 300+ pages if the media doesn’t catch them. He argues that the release didn’t allow for the needed period of scrutiny by journalists and experts, and I think he’s correct.
My deepest fears – RIAs already suppressed
Transparency and integrity get difficult fast if processes designed to evaluate the overall financial and climate change impacts of policy get sidelined, and Thomas Coughlan has a flaming scoop, finding that there is already active suppression of proactive Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the new Government’s policy to scrap the clean car rebate. The RIA for the policy is apparently already drafted by officials, yet may be suppressed by the policy to avoid RIA on the 100-day policy agenda.
Henry Cooke provides a defence of the RIA at length and it is well worth considering the threat a precedent of skipping RIA will set for the integrity of policy processes with financial and environmental impacts. Again, that fear is why I’ve started this as the Environmental Integrity Project - we’ll see where it goes.
Check back for updates…
This could take a while longer… (source)