DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When the United Nations climate talks in Dubai end sometime this week, big promises are likely to be made about how the planet will combat climate change caused by burning fuels. Fossils such as oil, coal and gas.
Negotiators are debating how quickly to cut consumption of these fossil fuels and how to finance a comprehensive transition to clean energy, raising the possibility of a historic deal.
Previous summits have ended with allocating funds to help developing countries transition to clean energy, with pledges to reduce pollution and with a promise to keep the most vulnerable people at the center of political conversations.
But have the countries kept their word?
Before a decision is announced from this year's talks, a look back at five big promises from almost 30 years of summits and what has happened since.
EMISSION REDUCTIONS IN KYOTO
The third climate summit took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, one of the hottest years on record in the 20th century.
The agreement, known as the Kyoto Protocol, called for 41 high-emitting countries around the world and the European Union to reduce their emissions by just over 5% compared to 1990 levels. Emissions can be reduced in many ways, whether by using clean energy like wind and solar that don't emit greenhouse gases, or by making things that do emit greenhouse gases, such as internal combustion engine vehicles, less harmful to the environment.
Despite the agreement to reduce emissions, it was not until 2005 that countries finally agreed to apply the Kyoto Protocol. The United States and China, then as now the two largest emitters, did not sign the agreement.
As far as the promises made go, Kyoto was not successful. Since then, emissions have increased dramatically. At that time, 1997 was the warmest year on record since the pre-industrial era. This record was broken in 1998 and more than a dozen times since then.
However, Kyoto is still considered a historic moment in the fight against climate change, as it was the first time so many countries recognized the problem and pledged to do something about it.
COPENHAGEN CASH FOR THE CLIMATE
When the 2009 conference was held in Denmark, the world had just completed its hottest decade on record, a record that has since been surpassed.
The summit is widely seen as a failure because of disagreements between developed and developing countries over emissions reductions and whether poorer countries could use fossil fuels for economic growth. Still, it contained an important promise: money for countries to transition to clean energy.
Rich countries pledged to send $100 billion a year to developing countries for clean technologies by 2020. However, this number was not reached in the early 2020s, sparking criticism from both developing countries and environmentalists.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in 2022 that rich countries could have met and even exceeded the $100 billion target. But Oxfam, an anti-poverty organization, said that probably 70% of the funds were loans, which were actually worsening the debt crisis in developing countries.
And as climate change worsened, experts said the promised funds were not enough. A study published by climate economist Nicholas Stern concluded that developing countries will likely need $2 trillion per year for climate action by 2030.
The Paris Agreement
Almost 200 countries adopted a global pact to combat climate change in 2015, calling on the world to work together to reduce greenhouse gases. However, they decided that it would be non-binding, so countries that did not comply would not be subject to sanctions.
The Paris Agreement is widely regarded as the United Nations' greatest achievement in the fight against climate change. It was agreed exactly eight years ago, on December 12th, with a standing ovation in the plenary hall. The countries agreed to limit warming compared to the pre-industrial era to “well below” 2 °C (3.8 °F) and ideally to a maximum of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
The legacy of Paris continues and the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C remains a central element of the talks. Scientists agree that the threshold must be maintained because every tenth of a degree of warming leads to even more devastating consequences in the form of extreme weather events on an already hot planet.
The world has not exceeded the established limit – it has warmed by about 1.1 or 1.2 degrees Celsius, or 2 to 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit, since the beginning of the 19th century – but it is on track to do so unless emissions are reduced quickly.
GLASGOW AND COAL
Six years after Paris, global warming had reached such a critical point that negotiators sought a new commitment aimed at keeping it at the levels agreed in 2015.
The average temperature was already 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in the pre-industrial era.
The Glasgow summit has been postponed until 2021 as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The event included mass protests led by climate activist Greta Thunberg, who led a global movement of young activists demanding more action from their leaders.
After last-minute disagreements over the wording of the final document, the countries agreed to a “phase-out” of coal use, a gentler formula than the original “phase-out”. India and China, two economies heavily dependent on coal, pushed for the text to be lowered.
Burning coal produces more emissions than any other fossil fuel, about 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The consumption of coal and oil is also a major source of emissions.
So far, countries have not adhered to the Glasgow agreement. Emissions from coal have increased slightly and the countries that use it the most have not yet begun to phase out the most polluting fossil fuels.
India is an example. The country relies on coal for more than 70% of its electricity generation and plans to significantly expand its coal-fired power capacity over the next 16 months.
LOSSES AND DAMAGE IN SHARM EL SHEIJ
At last year's climate conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh, countries agreed for the first time to set up a fund to help poor countries recover from the effects of climate change.
A few months after devastating floods in Pakistan killed nearly 2,000 people and caused more than $3.2 trillion in damages, COP27 delegates decided to establish the Loss and Damage Fund to cover destroyed homes, flooded land and Compensate for income losses caused by crops damaged by climate change.
After disagreements over its format, the fund was officially launched on the first day of this year's talks in Dubai. Around $700 million has already been committed. The commitments – and the amounts each country wishes to contribute – are voluntary.
Climate experts say the money pledged represents only a fraction of the billions of dollars needed, as extreme weather events such as hurricanes, rising sea levels, floods and droughts increase as temperatures rise. ___
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is part of a series produced as part of the India Climate Journalism Program, a collaboration between The Associated Press, the Stanley Center for Peace and Security and the Press Trust of India.
The Associated Press' climate and environmental reporting is supported by several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content.