COP28 Has Not Found Solutions to Overcome Global Warming
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23 December 2023 18:21 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Brazilian Earth System Scientist, Carlos Nobre, said COP28 failed to come up with solutions for the Earth’s temperature that exceeded 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
LIKE previous United Nations climate change conferences, COP28 held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, ended a day later than initially scheduled. Contentious negotiations over carbon emissions allowed the 197-member meeting to conclude only on December 13. A member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Carlos Nobre, was at the conference until December 9.
Nobre is a co-author of Climate Change 2007 which offers scientific, technical, and socio-economic information regarding climate change, its impacts as well as options for adaptation and mitigation. Following the publication of the book, the IPCC won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
At COP28, all the countries missed their mitigation commitments in the Paris Agreement to limit the earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in the 1800s. “The fossil fuel industry doesn’t want to reduce emissions,” said the climate expert from Brazil in an online interview with Tempo reporters, Abdul Manan and Iwan Kurniawan, on December 12.
Nonetheless, COP28 yielded several agreements including the Loss and Damaged Fund and the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by threefold. Nobre predicts that current climate crisis mitigation measures around the world will push the earth’s temperature beyond 2 degrees Celsius in 2050. “COP28 has not found any solutions,” he said during a subsequent interview on December 14. The interview has been edited for the sake of flow and context.
What is your assessment of the results of the Dubai COP28?
I’m not very optimistic. In the Paris Agreement 2015, all the countries voluntarily pledged to limit warming to 1.5 degrees (Celsius). The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) via its global stocktake last year assessed that what all countries are doing will result in warming by 2.4 to 2.6 degrees Celsius.
It means that the Paris Agreement targets will not be achieved?
All greenhouse gas emissions that we have now exceed 55 billion tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) equivalent. You should achieve a 43 percent reduction by 2030 to achieve net zero by 2050. Emissions are increasing in 2030 except in a few countries like Indonesia that managed to reduce them in the past four or five years. Unfortunately, they are increasing in most fossil fuel-emitting countries. So, globally, emissions are rising. I don’t see many countries really committed to a rapid decline in emissions, particularly fossil fuels and agricultural emissions.
Why aren’t they reducing emissions?
Because economically, the entire fossil fuel industry contributes around 17 percent of global GDP (gross domestic product). Before COP started, all countries in the world provided subsidies worth US$7.2 trillion annually for fossil fuel production and consumption. Meanwhile, subsidies for renewable energy sources like wind solar, wind, and green hydrogen was only US$400 to 500 billion, less than 10 percent of fossil fuel subsidies. It’s very difficult to change that because the fossil fuel industry all over the planet is politically and economically very powerful.
COP28 in the end agreed on energy transition but not to totally abandon fossil fuel energy. What is your opinion?
Perhaps some people say that the positive outcome was at least COP28’s mention of the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions. But they did not bring back the original terms agreed at COP26 to phase out fossil fuels all over the planet. And then they changed ‘phase out’ to ‘phase down’, meaning only to reduce. They didn’t do that at COP28. Some countries may do transition more rapidly, and some may do it slowly, so it’s not clear whether we are going to succeed with that.
There was also an agreement to triple the renewable energy mix. What will be the impacts?
This is very good. But again, global exploration of fossil fuels continues to increase. Many countries, such as the United States, China, Russia, and Arab countries, continue to explore new fossil fuel mines, oil, and natural gas wells all over the world. So, it’s very hard to believe they will reduce.
