Climate Roundup: Winter blues

The 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, or COP 28, met in Dubai in early December, and it was, by all accounts, kind of a mess. For one, there was a significant presence of parties who are invested in continuing the use of fossil fuels–including this year’s COP president, who is the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

It’s official: COP28 has more fossil fuel lobbyists than ever (HEATED, December 5, 2023)

Once Again, Al Jaber Tells The World Exactly Who He Is (Drilled, December 8, 2023)

How Amy Westervelt Sees Through the Smokescreen of COP28 (Atmos, December 6, 2023)

Is It Time to Change How We Talk About 1.5C? (Bloomberg, December 1, 2023)

This caused some activists to write off the convention as a lost cause, but the stakes are too high to do that.

COP 28 Is a Crunch Point for Countries on the Front Lines of Climate Change (Scientific American, November 29, 2023)

The U.N. Climate Talks Hung Poorer Nations Out to Dry (The New Republic, December 13, 2023)

How COP28 failed the world’s small islands (The Conversation, December 15, 2023)

The 12-year-old who halted COP28 (HEATED, December 12, 2023)

The good news is that, for the first time, the resulting agreement included specific language about transitioning away from fossil fuels toward alternative energy sources.

Nations strike deal at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels (Reuters, December 13, 2023)

It will still be an uphill climb, but this is a positive development. And we have a roadmap for success: The Montreal Protocol, which emerged from a 1987 international conference, resulted in a highly successful international treaty to phase out substances that contribute to ozone depletion (such as chlorofluorocarbons)–and the ozone layer has been regenerating, is close to completely repaired. Likewise, it will take decades for the carbon already in the atmosphere to complete its lifecycle, but it will do so if nations implement policies to support the fossil fuel phase out.