Forest fires in Greece, Spain, Canada. Torrential rains that devastate entire cities in Libya. Shrinking icebergs, melting glaciers, an extremely dry summer, very warm seas: this was the world in 2023. It will go down in history as the hottest on record – for now. In this sad context, the global community is preparing for a new round of UN climate negotiations. Around 80 thousand politicians, researchers, diplomats, businesspeople, journalists, business representatives, celebrities and environmental organizations will meet at the 28th World Climate Summit – called COP28 – in the oil metropolis Dubai, from November 30th to December 12th. The location in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is already causing criticism. Environmental organizations are not the only ones to assume that the final document will be in favor of the oil industry. After all, the chairman of the conference is Sultan Al Jaber, managing director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).
UN sees only “baby steps” in climate protection
Climate change will continue unabated in large parts of the world, it was said in advance at the 13th Extreme Weather Congress held in Hamburg at the end of September. The opportunity to stabilize the climate system with little effort is long gone. UN climate chief Simon Stiell doesn’t expect much success either. The climate protection plans of the 198 participating countries are “baby steps” and the world is far from limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
In 2015, at the climate summit in Paris (COP21), states made a binding decision to limit the increase in global temperature due to the greenhouse effect to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. The promises were not fulfilled. According to the United Nations Environment Agency (Unep) emissions gap report, humanity can expect warming of 2.9 degrees if it continues as before.
Humanity cannot adapt to another 2.9 degrees.Niklas Höhne
The consequences are serious: if the Earth warms by 1.5 degrees, six percent of all insects will die, 70 percent of all coral reefs will disappear, the risk of flooding will be twice as high, half of the glaciers will melt and 50 million of people in cities will have very little water. If it gets two degrees hotter, the aforementioned numbers will be two-thirds higher. The World Wildlife Fund Austria calculated these scenarios.
The world needs emergency mode
“Humanity, on the other hand, cannot adapt to 2.9 degrees,” said Niklas Höhne, one of the authors of the UNEP emissions gap report, in a webinar organized by Science Media Center Germany: “One of the functions most important aspects of COP28 is that Climate is the number one topic for two weeks. But the world would have to go into emergency mode and not settle for the lowest common denominator, but rather make the impossible possible. There’s pressure on the line.”
At the heart of the COP28 negotiations is the question of where we stand. A stocktaking in which countries have had to assess their own progress over the past two years is expected to culminate in decisions on what to do next. At the climate summit, a “decision text” should be formulated that reflects previous efforts and determines how global warming of 1.5 or a maximum of two degrees can still be achieved.
To achieve this, negotiating partners must reach agreement on three points in particular: how to deal with fossil fuels, the taxation of greenhouse gas methane and the financing of the fund that is intended to compensate the poorest countries for climate damage. .
Dealing with fossil energy sources
Let’s start with the most difficult battle that countries will have to fight at the 28th climate summit – that of fossil fuels. The global community must decide whether to opt for a consistent and rapid end, a gradual withdrawal or continued use of fossil fuels with different signals.
&w=2048&q=100 "UN climate conference: 28 times hot air? Vienna newspaper 3")
80% of energy consumption comes from oil and gas. How much longer can we afford this? © Illustration: WZ, Image source: Adobe Stock
This issue is not on the agenda for the first time. The first COP decision targeting fossil fuels was taken at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. When it comes to finding a solution, the normative force of the factual is opposed to urgency. Currently, 80% of people’s energy consumption comes from oil and gas. According to a forecast from the International Energy Agency, fossils will likely keep many processes running in 2050, albeit to a lesser extent. In the case of a quick exit, there is a risk of painful supply bottlenecks for consumers, which cannot currently be compensated by renewable energy.
Store CO2 underground
Therefore, a variant is being discussed that could even extend the useful life of fossil fuels. If it is possible to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, new oil and gas power plants could be built and – purely mathematically – declared CO2 neutral.
The technical term for capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground is Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). The problem: “According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the method is a working assumption. But it is not yet a proven practice. The question also arises as to whether there is sufficient underground storage space. Austria alone could only store underground the amount of CO2 it currently consumes in two years at its current level of emissions,” says climate researcher Daniel Huppman from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg (IIASA). ), and: “If insurmountable obstacles arise, we would have nothing to reduce emissions from these power plants – so we would continue as before.”
The third alternative would be to place more emphasis on expanding renewable energy while phasing out fossil energy. “Pressing CO2 into the ground is always more expensive than saving it,” says Niklas Höhne, professor of greenhouse gas emissions reduction at Wageningen University in the Netherlands: “Photovoltaics in particular are being expanded with quickly enough to reduce the 1.5 degrees -To reach the goal. Electric cars are also selling faster than expected. This shows that we can do it if we want.” As long as the positions do not conflict for many more years. The US, Russia, Arab countries and China are in favor of deep storage of the CO2 emissions that fossil power plants emit, while Australia, Canada, the EU and China are in favor of accelerating the expansion of renewable energy.
Methane taxation
Methane taxation is on the agenda for the first time this year. The greenhouse gas methane is the main component of natural gas. As with many easy-to-implement measures, taxing them can make a noticeable difference. It would also plug holes in climate budgets.
Reducing methane emissions would quickly do a lot for climate protection.Daniel Huppmann
“Although CO2 remains in the atmosphere forever, methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas in the short term, but it breaks down again. In the short term it causes intense damage to the atmosphere, but after about two decades it disappears again”, explains Huppmann. The US introduced a punitive tax on methane, making greenhouse gas emissions significantly more expensive. “This measure is quickly noticeable in the climate. Reducing methane emissions would quickly bring great results for climate protection”, says the climate researcher. The signs for the measure are not bad: China, as the world’s largest emitter of methane, announced in advance that the gas would become part of its national climate plan.
Financing: Who pays?
Financial measures are less clear. Industrialized countries had already committed to providing US$100 billion annually from public and private sources for international action against climate change by 2020. Last year, a separate climate damage fund was advocated at the climate summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. To ensure that this does not just exist on paper, high and binding financial commitments are needed this time. It was only in October, after months of negotiations, that it was decided that the World Bank should play a role in this process, although it has not yet been supported financially. The decisive factor is now the text of the final communiqué.
Difficult negotiations or just a PR campaign?
And what are the chances that the 28th UN Climate Summit will really point the way to a climate-neutral future? At the most important climate meeting, will agreed positions be presented that have already been decided in advance, or will there actually be difficult negotiations? Are participants really concerned about climate protection, or is the World Climate Conference just a parade with celebrities? What exactly will change in Dubai during the twelve days?
First, one thing: all parties participate in the conference and discuss it, both in the plenary session and in bilateral meetings. “But the real negotiations take place between states and most states have already decided their positions,” explains Lambert Schneider, research coordinator for international climate policy at the Öko-Institut in Berlin. “The EU, for example, decided its position in advance through a Council decision and basic position papers.” And lobby interests also play a role here.
Positions have already been defined
The fear that the climate summit will be a kind of public relations event is justified, confirms Reimund Schwarze, head of the working group on Climate Change and Extreme Events at the Department of Economics at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig. “Let’s look, for example, at what essentially needs to happen in Dubai to move forward with the implementation of the Paris Agreement: In preliminary negotiations, countries initially focused their collective inventory on presenting what had already been achieved under the Paris Agreement. I wake up in a very positive way.”
Climate negotiations are a diverse and multi-layered process. But at the COP28 summit, no country can be told what to do. How much nations actually contribute to climate protection is up to them. “This means that progress cannot be made, especially where deficits are largest,” says Schwarze when asked by WZ. “No new instruments and approaches are planned, in any way, beyond nationally determined contributions. That’s why I see the danger that this is an event that won’t help us much.”
So will it continue to be hot air and a world in which large industrial nations in particular do what they want to the detriment of others? Meanwhile, the huge photovoltaic farms in the city of Masdar in the Arabian Desert are working. The green model city in the Arabian desert produces this cheapest form of renewable energy in the middle of the oil empire. Energy company Adnoc is invested – and with it Sultan Al Jaber.