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Two weeks of COP28-ing in Dubai ended in a climate deal that seems to hinge on two words: “transitioning away.”
In the context of fossil fuels, the phrase was historic: Never before had a COP deal squarely confronted the idea that human civilization must give up oil, coal, and gas if it wishes to rein in climate change. But that’s where this year’s conference landed, with a 21-page draft decision calling for a “transitioning away from fossil fuels...in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.”
The English language offers plenty of weasel words and euphemisms. Think, for instance, of the Glasgow COP’s agreement to “phase down” coal plants—a compromise term used meaninglessly to avoid the words “phase out,” and rendered moot in any case by the record global coal use in 2023. Next to that, the deliberate selection of the phrase “transitioning away” counts as a victory for the climate.
But it’s an unsatisfactory win all the same. The language of abandoning fossil fuels—the chief contributors to the climate crisis—finally appears nearly three decades after the first COP in 1995. Climate activists would argue that the time for “transitioning away” has actually passed, and that the current moment calls not for a gentle shift but an urgent reduction in the use of fossil fuels.
THE VAGARIES OF VAGUENESS
As with any COP deal, the transition urged by the new deal is not legally binding. A signatory government may return home from Dubai over the weekend and sell drilling rights to an oil field next week with no consequences.
Nor does the COP28 deal spell out a timeline in which this transition must be completed. It only begs for some sort of acceleration in the 2020s—a decade with seven years left in it, time enough for major oil and gas powers to first carry out their planned expansions before offering a modicum of restraint. The US, for instance, is in the middle of a muscular buildout of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) network. It could construct export terminals and liquefaction facilities over the next five years, and then conceivably call the end of that process an act of transitioning away from LNG. Except that the US would, by then, be a far bigger producer and vendor of LNG than it is now.
Within the clause “transitioning away” lies plenty of wiggle room even for petrostates to proceed with business as usual. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said after the summit that the deal “left space for countries to choose their own way.” That’s great for oil-rich nations in the short term. But what will this deliberate ambiguity cost the planet in the long run?
QUOTABLE
“We didn’t want to interrupt the standing ovation when we came into the room, but we are a little confused about what happened. It seems that you just get on with the decisions and the small island developing states were not in the room.”
—Anne Rasmussen, a Samoa representative at COP28, on the final plenary for the climate deal unfolding while delegates from the Alliance of Small Island States were out of the room. Rasmussen described the deal as merely “an incremental advancement over business as usual”
KICKING THE HABIT
In the COP28 deal, the declared objective of “transitioning away” is “to achieve net zero by 2050.” How do the delegates expect this transition to take place?
- The Alliance of Small Island States as well as the European Union were pushing for a categorical end to the use of fossil fuels by 2050. “Net zero” is an imperfect alternative to that goal. It allows the use of oil and gas in tandem with carbon capture—an unproven technology at the required scale, but one that Saudi Arabia and other petrostates regard as carte blanche to continue burning fossil fuels.
- The COP28 deal officially recognized the role of “transitional fuels” in the move away from fossil fuels. That means only one thing: LNG, which burns cleaner than oil and coal but is still a fossil fuel. Given that the world will be unable to quit fossil fuels cold turkey overnight, LNG is useful to tide us over to the green future of pure renewables. But it’s wise to remain wary. Champions of LNG like to talk about it as if it’s a nicotine patch—a harmless way to break an addiction. In reality, it’s like exchanging heavy-tar cigarettes for slightly lighter ones. You’re still smoking, with all the known risks that this entails.
- Should every country, rich or poor, be expected to transition away at the same time, in the same way? For the developing world, the transition remains underfunded; the hundreds of billions of dollars that wealthy nations pledged to emerging economies back at the COP summit in Paris in 2015 have not materialized. It took nearly 30 years for COP to commit to a transition away from fossil fuels; the world can’t afford to wait another 30 years for COP to rustle up the money that the transition requires.
ONE SMALL NUMBER
$20 million: The quantity of new climate financing for the developing world pledged at COP28 by the US, the world’s wealthiest nation and the biggest historic emitter of carbon emissions
ONE 🇦🇿 THING
Among the duties of the COP28 summit was to approve the selection of the next climate summit host: Azerbaijan. Cue further controversy. After the UAE, Azerbaijan will be the second successive COP host that is a significant producer of fossil fuels.
Further, Azerbaijan’s government—sustained by oil revenues—has been notoriously hostile to critics and dissidents, imprisoning journalists and constricting food and medical supplies to the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Andrew Stroehlein, the European media and editorial director of Human Rights Watch, called Azerbaijan “another rights-abusing petro-autocracy.”
The choice of Azerbaijan hints at a fundamental disconnect. The climate-industrial complex continues to frame the climate crisis as an economic issue, whereas it is, in reality, a human rights issue. The former class of problem can tolerate patient tweaks and adjustments to incentives in the marketplace. The latter, involving lives already in peril, demands much more immediate intervention. Failing to see or punish Azerbaijan’s human rights abuses doesn’t bode well for the inevitable future, in which nations will be confronted with rogue petrostates, climate refugees, and strained livelihoods in a hotter world.
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Have a deliberately easy weekend!
—Samanth Subramanian, Weekend Brief editor