Climate summit COP28 - Is oil and gas coming to an end? The most important questions are still unanswered at the halfway point in Dubai
Shortly before the mid-term break on Thursday, the deliberations at the UN Climate Change Conference appear to be deadlocked on the central issue of moving away from fossil fuels. In Dubai, the German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan spoke of the current "sometimes sluggish" course of negotiations. In other areas, however, progress can certainly be seen.
The oil and gas exporting countries in particular are against an end to fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia will "absolutely not" agree to such demands at the climate conference, said its Energy Minister Abdulasis bin Salman. Dramatic warnings from UN Secretary-General António Guterres that "a burning planet cannot be saved with a fire hose made of fossil fuels" were also initially ignored.
COP28: criticism of the host's role
The role of conference president Sultan al-Jaber, who is also head of the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates, is being viewed with suspicion in Dubai. Statements attributed to him, according to which an end to oil, coal and gas would "send the world back to the Stone Age", have caused outrage, with which he also questioned scientific statements on the subject.
"I have always made it clear that everything we do is focused on science," said a visibly upset al-Jaber, rejecting the accusations. A new negotiating text presented by his presidency on Tuesday now allows the opposing positions on fossil fuels to stand side by side as options. However, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Paris goals cannot be met without the phase-out.
The demand to triple the expansion of renewables by 2030, which was also discussed, is supported by almost two thirds of the nearly 200 participating countries. In addition, the increase in energy efficiency is to be doubled from two to at least four percent per year.
However, some fear that ultimately only these two targets could be adopted, but not the end of fossil fuels. If the EU and, above all, the particularly vulnerable countries do not exert massive pressure, "then I think this is the most likely scenario", says Christoph Bals from Germanwatch.
Climate fund as an "important milestone"
WWF climate chief Viviane Raddatz sees the fact that the conference got the new fund for climate-related damage up and running right at the start as a "promising start". After Germany and the Emirates led the way with pledges of 100 million dollars each, a starting capital of more than 650 million dollars has now been raised.
With the participation of the Emirates, a state that is not a traditional industrialized country has also joined the group of donors for the first time. Development Minister Svenja Schulze saw this as an "important milestone". "I have never seen a COP start like this before," said German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan on Wednesday during an interim assessment of Schulze's praise.
According to Morgan, this breakthrough will also have a positive impact on the negotiations on a new global target for international climate financing, which have so far been rather under the radar. This is primarily about payments for adaptation to climate impacts.
Developing countries are calling for 400 billion dollars per year for this area alone from 2030 onwards. So far, a total of 100 billion has been earmarked for climate change mitigation and adaptation, but according to preliminary data, this will not be available until 2022, two years later than planned. However, final decisions on the new long-term target are not due until 2024.
Climate negotiators still have a lot of work ahead of them
What was also achieved in the first week of the mammoth Dubai conference with its more than 88,000 accredited participants were concrete steps on the sidelines: during his appearance in Dubai, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed the founding of the Climate Club of countries that see themselves as pioneers in climate protection as a great success.
Other initiatives included the hydrogen economy and dealing with health risks in climate protection. However, Raddatz does not expect "the grand finale" for the "essential decisions" until shortly before the end at the beginning of next week. UN Climate Change Secretary Simon Stiell still sees a lot of work ahead of the negotiators. He criticized on Wednesday that the draft resolution presented so far in Dubai was "a grab bag of (...) wish lists and a lot of posturing".
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Source: www.stern.de
