SETH W. JAMES

COP28 Phases In “Loss and Damage Fund,” Phases Out “Phasing Out”

January 11, 2024

By Seth W. James

In the last month of 2023, the nations of the world again met to discuss the worsening effects of human-caused climate change, meeting in Dubia for COP28.  The conference was more contentions than those of years past, beginning with the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates as the session’s president; Al Jazeera reports that the oil tycoon has alarmed many through his “alleged questioning of climate science.”  (I highly recommend following that link to the AJ article, as it includes an excellent infographic about energy sources by region.)  OPEC poured fuel on the fire by issuing a letter to its member states, Al Jazeera confirmed, to “proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy ie fossil fuels rather than emissions.”  Their letter presaged the hotly contested language debate over the draft text of a resolution from the conference, which initially called for “phasing out” the use of fossil fuels, but was ultimately watered down to simply “transitioning away.”

Though Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Espen Barth Eide, was quoted by Reuters as declaring, “It is the first time that the world unites around such a clear text on the need to transition away from fossil fuels,” the phrase “transition away” was a compromise and a bad one, as it does not set out clear goals and is open to more interpretation than “phasing out.”  Anne Rasmussen, from the Alliance of Small Island States, described the weakened text as, “an incremental advancement over business-as-usual, when what we really need is an exponential step-change in our actions.”  Island states “were among the most vocal supporters of language to phase out fossil fuels and had the backing of major oil and gas producers such as the United States, Canada and Norway, as well as the European Union and scores of other governments,” Reuters goes on to report.

Despite the weakened text and a report that showed that the world was not reaching its goals in curtailing global warming, there were some positive achievements.  The Loss and Damage fund, proposed during COP27, held in Egypt in 2022, was approved.  It will be woefully underfunded, as Al Jazeera reports that, “several countries have pledged a total of $700m, which falls far short of the estimated $400bn damage caused by climate change each year.”  A drop in the bucket of rapidly rising sea levels.  The conference also called for the tripling of renewable energy sources by 2030, which—and perhaps I’m being overly cynical here—is a fairly safe thing for the conference to call for, given how renewables are one of the fastest growing industries.

Looking at COP28 as a whole, particularly at the language debate that forced the conference to extend for an additional day to reach a consensus, we see the short-term, short-sighted, and self-interested greed of fossil fuel producers again preventing Humanity from taking the extraordinary steps needed to preserve the Earth’s ability to sustain human life.  And yet, there is, even in this battle, some small glimmer of hope.  The forces of greed have clearly transitioned away from their habitual frontal assault on climate change remediation and are now conducting a rear-guard action: could it be that they, finally, see their inevitable defeat in the distance?  Nevertheless, we know that they will contest every inch and that the delay they cause will likely cost Humanity its very existence.  All delay is defeat: we need action now.