How important the Pope considers Cop28, which opened in Dubai on Thursday, is shown by the importance that the conference had in the exhortation “Laudate Deum” published at the beginning of October. Two entire chapters are devoted to the UN climate summits, the so-called cops or conferences of signatories to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted at the historic Rio Summit in 1992. Every year since then, the 197 countries are parties to the treaty and the EU meets to take stock of the situation and try to push for common policy action to curb accelerating global warming. This is a consequence of environmental pollution caused by human activities, as scientists have been repeating for some time and the United Nations itself attests in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In Dubai it will be the first time that a delegation from the Holy See will take an active part in the negotiations and not just as an “observer”. “If we have confidence in people’s ability to go beyond their small interests and think big, we cannot stop dreaming that COP28 will lead to an acceleration of the energy transition.” “This conference can be a turning point,” said Pope Francis in these hours. An appeal to all countries in the world that will compete until December 12th, subject to postponement.
The list of attendees (and the shadow of conflict of interest)
As always, heads of state and government are expected at the opening of the UN conference, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but it is already known that US Presidents Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping will be missing. The negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, where 70,000 participants are expected, will be led by respective climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, who have already signed a pre-cooperation agreement for success in Dubai. The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has already set off on a multi-day trip to the Middle East; Among the protagonists of the conference are Teresa Ribeira from the European Union, the Vice President of Spain – a country that has held the EU Council Presidency since July – with long and great experience in climate issues, and then the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. The position of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia on phasing out fossil fuels is noteworthy.
Meanwhile, shadows of conflict of interest threaten to grow over the presidency, which was relaunched by the BBC on the basis of a 150-page dossier that this edition’s president, Sultan Al Jaber, a former Emirati state minister and still CEO of Adnoc, is the huge public Abu Dhabi oil company, would have exploited its role to initiate deals with government delegations abroad regarding hydrocarbons: deals in which Adnoc itself is apparently interested. The denial of the COP28 presidency is blunt.
The goals of the meeting
In Dubai, an initial assessment of countries’ progress towards the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement will be carried out and future, hopefully more ambitious, measures will be adopted to address the climate crisis, as explains WWF Climate Manager Italy, Mariagrazia Midulla. The International Energy Agency, an OECD body, will propose five actions to keep the world in line with 2030 climate targets: from tripling renewable energy capacity to doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency to requiring oil and gas companies to do so , advance climate goals, drive energy transition, reduce emissions and establish financial mechanisms to support investments in clean energy in emerging and developing countries. Italian climate think tank Ecco highlights that one of the key battles in Dubai will be the role of carbon capture and storage (CCS).