<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/13/cop28-deal-significant-progress-tackle-climate-crisis>
"As temperatures broke records around the world this summer, António Guterres,
the UN secretary general, warned in September: “Humanity has opened the gates
of hell.”
On Wednesday, he hailed delegates at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, as two
weeks of fraught talks ended. “For the first time, the outcome recognises the
need to transition away from fossil fuels,” he said. “The era of fossil fuels
must end, and it must end with justice and equity.”
More than 190 nations accepted a text on Wednesday morning that calls on the
world to “transition away” from fossil fuels. But is this a historic deal that
will spell the eventual end of gas, oil and coal? Or will it be one more step
on the road to hell?
In the world of climate talks, these two are not mutually exclusive. The text
that was gavelled on Wednesday morning, known as the “global stocktake”,
enjoins countries for the first time to embark on a de facto phase-out of
fossil fuels. But it cannot require them to do so and it contains “a litany of
loopholes”, according to the small island states that are most vulnerable to
the impacts of the climate crisis, that will hamper the world from cutting
greenhouse gas emissions drastically enough to limit global heating to 1.5C
(2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.
The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirates host of the
conference, hailed the adoption of the key text on Wednesday morning, and
called it the “UAE consensus”. A consensus, but not quite unanimity: Samoa
spoke for small island states at the final meeting to say they would not block
the deal, but warned that the world was still far off track from the 1.5C
limit, and this outcome was not enough to correct that course.
As they and other developing countries pointed out, there are plenty of
problems with this deal. Poor nations still need hundreds of billions more in
finance, to help them make the transition away from coal, oil and gas.
Developed countries and oil producers will not be forced to move as fast as
climate science urges."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
