BREAKING: Transition Out of Fossil Fuels, Dawn of Renewables as COP28 Concludes in Dubai

The historic provisions, arrived at after round-the-clock negotiations by climate ministers and other senior officials, appeared in the energy transition section of the 21-page document.

“A call to transition energy systems away from fossil fuels—the first time oil and gas had been included in a COP agreement—won over those demanding strong action; but oil producers and developing countries were reassured by assertions that countries are free to follow their own paths to net zero,” Bloomberg News reports. “Taken together with a call to triple renewables deployment, [take] action on methane emissions, and get a loss and damage fund going, Dubai may well be the most significant COP since the Paris Agreement in 2015.”

Steve’s note

Some people think this is a win of sorts — I don’t. Note the word “could” in the paragraph below. But, will it?

Ultimately, the final deal “could amount to a historic agreement as it addresses the impacts of polluting and harmful energy sources, and shapes a path towards energies that are safer and more reliable,” said Canadian Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault, who played a lead role in the talks. “The package is not perfect; no UN text is. But as someone who has been in this space for more than 20 years, I see a vision we can rally around.”

Still, many COP observers pointed to a breakthrough moment in the history of international climate negotiations, even as they remained clear-eyed about the hard work ahead.

Observers pointed out there was no agreement on how the transition out of fossil fuels will be funded in the poorest, most vulnerable countries on the front lines of the climate emergency. Those factors, along with the ultimately weak language on fossil fuels, made COP28 a “fossil-fuelled failure,” declared the Center for International Economic Law.

“Countries at COP28 faced a choice between fossil fuels and life. And big polluters chose fossil fuels,” said Nikki Reisch, director of CIEL’s climate and energy program. “Despite the unstoppable momentum and unequivocal science behind the need for a clear signal on the phaseout of oil, gas, and coal—free of loopholes or limitations—the text failed to deliver one. This failure was 30 years in the making, borne of a process that allows a select few countries to hold progress hostage and the fossil fuel industry not just to sit at the table, but to play host. Survival cannot depend on lowest-common-denominator outcomes.”

“Wealthy countries like Canada and the United States—who have an overwhelming responsibility to phase out fossil fuels first and fastest—have failed the global community by refusing to provide the financial support needed from developing countries in order to transition their economies away from fossil fuels, adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis, and address the losses and damages being experienced,” said Julia Levin, associate director, national climate at Environmental Defence Canada. “Rebuilding trust will require wealthy countries to start paying up so that no one is left behind.” Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/change-in-tone-has-cop-decision-moving-in-right-direction-as-negotiators-work-overnight/| theenergymix.com/change-in-ton…

#world #cdnpoli #COP28 #timelines #PhaseOut #reductions #unacceptable #environment

COP28 BETRAYAL: ‘We Will Not Sign Our Own Death Warrant’, Delegate Says, After Al Jaber Circulates ‘Unacceptable’ Declaration

UN climate negotiations seemed certain to go into overtime this morning after the COP28 secretariat published a draft decision text that left out any clear timeline for phasing out fossil fuels and was dismissed as “unacceptable”, “incoherent”, “grossly insufficient”, and a “slap in the face” by angry, frustrated, and increasingly sleep-deprived delegates.

The sense of fury and determination at the sprawling conference site in Dubai was driven primarily by draft decision text on the Global Stocktake, the culmination of an essential, two-year process meant to track countries’ progress on their climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement and set them up for faster action in the years ahead. That text is seen as “the main outcome of the summit,” but “people hate it,” Climate Home News writes this morning.

“Small island states slammed it as ‘a death warrant’, their spokesperson getting teary,” Climate Home recounts. “For the EU it contains elements that are ‘simply unacceptable’. Campaigners variably described it as ‘a scandal’, ‘divorced from reality’, and ‘a dog’s dinner’.”

‘OPEC Dictated the Text’

“We will not sign our death certificate,” declared Samoan Natural Resources and Environment Minister Cedric Shuster, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). “We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”

“We will not sign their death certificates,” an Australian delegate echoed back, after Marshall Islands negotiator John Silk said the draft declaration would commit his country to a “watery grave.”

“This obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word,” wrote former U.S. vice-president and Climate Reality project founder Al Gore, adding that the COP Presidency’s language had left negotiations “on the verge of complete failure”.

No Timeline for Fossil Phaseout

And instead of making reductions mandatory—setting percentages and target dates to get the job done in line with climate science—the text “frames such reductions as optional, by calling on countries to ‘take actions that could include’ reducing fossil fuels,” among a menu of other energy options, the Guardian explains.

“That one word ‘could’ just kills everything,” and it means that “we can’t accept this text,” said Irish Environment Minister Eamon Ryan. “It’s not anywhere near ambitious enough. It’s not broad enough. It’s not what parties have been calling for… we have to stitch climate justice into every part of this text and we are not anywhere near that yet.”

“I don’t know what will happen to my kids tomorrow if we stick to this text,” said French Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher. |Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/cop28-betrayal-we-will-not-sign-our-own-death-warrant-delegate-says-after-al-jaber-circulates-unacceptable-declaration/| theenergymix.com/cop28-betraya…

#world #cdnpoli #COP28 #timelines #PhaseOut #reductions #unacceptable #environment

Global Tipping Points

Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity. Their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies.

For example, the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s great overturning circulation combined with global warming could cause half of the global area for growing wheat and maize to be lost. Five major tipping points are already at risk of being crossed due to warming right now and three more are threatened in the 2030s as the world exceeds 1.5°C global warming.

The full damage caused by negative tipping points will be far greater than their initial impact. The effects will cascade through globalised social and economic systems, and could exceed the ability of some countries to adapt. Negative tipping points show that the threat posed by the climate and ecological crisis is far more severe than is commonly understood and is of a magnitude never before faced by humanity.

Currently, there is no adequate global governance at the scale of the threats posed by negative tipping points. The world is on a disastrous trajectory. Crossing one harmful tipping point could trigger others, causing a domino effect of accelerating and unmanageable change to our life-support systems. Preventing this – and doing so equitably – should become the core goal and logic of a new global governance framework. Prevention is only possible if societies and economic systems are transformed to rapidly reduce emissions and restore nature.

The current approach of linear incremental change favoured by many decision makers is no longer an option. Existing governance institutions and decision-making approaches need to adapt to facilitate transformational change.

Crucial to achieving this transformational change are positive tipping point opportunities, where desirable changes in society become self-propelling. Concerted actions can create the enabling conditions for triggering rapid and large-scale transformation. Human history is flush with examples of abrupt social and technological change. Recent examples include the exponential increases in renewable electricity, the global reach of environmental justice movements, and the accelerating rollout of electric vehicles. Negative tipping point threats could be mitigated if there was a vast effort to trigger other positive tipping point opportunities.

Click here to download the summary report in pdf format https://global-tipping-points.org/download/4607/

Unfortunately, in the time lag during which appropriate governance and action might be realised, negative tipping points could still be triggered. This means that societies must urgently be made more resilient to minimise the vast and unequal harms. Critically, more resilient societies are also needed to ensure that collective focus on triggering positive tipping point opportunities can be sustained even through a negative tipping event. This resiliency can be achieved with ‘no regrets’ actions that anyway make societies more sustainable, equitable and prosperous.

The existence of tipping points means that ‘business as usual’ is now over. Rapid changes to nature and society are occurring, and more are coming. If we don’t revise our governance approach, these changes could overwhelm societies as the natural world rapidly comes apart. Alternatively, with emergency global action and appropriate governance, collective interventions could harness the power of positive tipping point opportunities, helping navigate toward a thriving sustainable future. |Read more https://global-tipping-points.org/| global-tipping-points.org/

#world #triggers #TippingPoints #environment #ClimateChange #cdnpoli #emergency #GlobalAction

Negotiators ‘Getting Real About What Matters’ as COP28 Enters Final 48 Hours

Image by French photographer and digital artist Fabien Barrau http://fabienbarrau.com/

On so many of the key issues on the COP agenda, Stiell said, there were still multiple options on the table that represented faster or slower action on climate impacts and solutions. “If we want to save lives now, and keep 1.5°C within reach, the highest ambition COP outcomes must stay front and centre in these negotiations,” he told participants. “So I urge negotiators to start with the highest ambition outcome and for them to ask, ‘How do we get there?’ Yes, compromises will be essential. But not on ambition.”

A day later, Stiell was back on the podium, urging negotiators to deliver “a climate action surge now, and a springboard for the crucial years ahead”. That momentum should start with the targets countries have already set for 2030 and climate finance as the “great enabler” for “ongoing acceleration,” particularly in the Global South..

That means it’s “high time we stop thinking of halving emissions as a some nice-to-do aspiration,” Stiell said. “It must become a must-do if we are to keep the global economy functioning, and protect billions of human lives.”

“Certain countries—seemingly committed to derailing the adaptation agenda—effectively hijacked the negotiation process not just in relation to the GGA, but across the entire spectrum of the adaptation negotiations,” the newsletter added, haggling over text formatting while refusing to engage on the substance of the text.

To date, “more than 100 countries have said they’d support a phaseout of fossil fuels, but many, including leading oil producers remain opposed,” Bloomberg said. “The hope is to forge a compromise by switching to the softer ‘phase down’, and using adjectives like ‘unabated’ and ‘orderly’,” a purported compromise that Al Jaber tried hard to sell in the months leading up to the COP.

“The myth of ‘abated fossil fuels’ is nothing more than greenwashing,” Nikki Reisch, climate and energy program director at the Center for International Energy Law, told The Energy Mix in an emailed statement.

But by then, the Friday edition of ECO, the daily COP newsletter produced by Climate Action Network-International, was already spotlighting climate change adaptation and mitigation as crucial discussion streams that were falling far short on their mandates.

Derailing Climate Adaptation

During a tense negotiating session Wednesday on the COP’s Global Goal for Adaptation (GGA), civil society observers “watched in horror as the adaptation negotiations collapsed in front of our eyes” and an earlier spirit of collaboration “vanished into thin air,” ECO wrote https://climatenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/08.12.2023.pdf [pdf].

“We need just a simple understanding that there’s only one question we should ask, which is: when are you going to stop burning fossil fuel?” Forrest said. “Any industrialist, any politician should receive that simple question. Not ‘what’s your net-zero 2050 plan’ or ‘what is your going greener plan’, or any of that whitewash.”

With more than three billion people already exposed to the impacts of climate change, “the time for excuses and prevarication is over,” Forrest said. “We have the solutions to phase out fossil fuel, and this is where we must go. If you say you can’t, then maybe you’re right—you can’t. But now’s the time for you to leave the stage and bring on someone who will.” |Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/negotiators-getting-real-about-what-matters-as-cop28-enters-final-48-hours/| theenergymix.com/negotiators-g…

#world #cdnpoli #COP28 #greenwashing #abatement #negotiating #AlJaber #hijacked #whitewash

Varcoe: ‘Nothing short of the NEP’ — Oilpatch girds for Ottawa’s new cap-and-trade emissions plan for sector

“It’s the single-biggest existential threat (to the sector). An emissions cap is a cap on production. It’s as simple as that,’ said Ensign Energy Services president Bob Geddes

As mentioned in a previous article https://libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1265-7481-a7e2-2d9102123364, Politico, Reuters, the Financial Times and the Economist top the list of most influential media for EU decision-makers, and they are paid huge sums of money to promote oil and gas.

Locally, in Canada, most of the newspapers are operated by Postmedia. They don’t pretend to be anything other than Conservative supporters. When they publish an article, like the one linked below in the Calgary Herald, you pretty well know what to expect.

“I hear that he’s intending to announce an emissions cap, which we see as a production cap on oil and gas . . . It’s a pretty outrageous thing to do, to come to a conference like this without having shared the details with us,” Smith said before heading into the dinner.

“I’ll be polite, as I always try to be, but I have to be firm, that they have continued to violate our jurisdiction, they lose in court and then they act as if they can operate outside the law.”

There hasn’t been any cap on production, only emissions.

An article released today by the ‘Canadian Energy Centre’ — which is what they are rebranding Jason Kenney’s war room as, said, “Canada’s oil sands producers are doing more to reduce emissions than operators in other countries, according to BMO Capital Markets.

“Between 2013 and 2021, BMO estimates the average oil sands barrel shaved off more than 22 kilograms of emissions, compared to a reduction of just five kilograms per barrel for other major global oil producers.

“Fact: Oil sands producers reducing emissions per barrel, on track for absolute emissions reductions

“The AP article makes no mention of the success oil sands producers have achieved reducing emissions per barrel. That so-called emissions intensity is now estimated to be 23 per cent lower than it was in 2009, according to S&P Global.”

Then it goes on to say, “The AP article perpetuates the inaccurate position that CCS is not a proven technology. But CCS in Canada has successfully operated for more than two decades.

“Canada has six of the world’s 39 commercial CCS operations, accounting for about 15 per cent of global CCS capacity even though Canada generates less than two per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to the International CCS Knowledge Centre.

“In Alberta, since 2015 two CCS projects – both tied to oil sands production – have safely stored more than 12 million tonnes of CO2, or the equivalent of taking more than 2.6 million internal combustion engine vehicles off the road.”

One would think we would see the emissions in the chart showing a decrease instead of a rapid increase.

If Alberta’s CCS projects are so successful, wouldn’t the Alberta government understand that it’s a cap on emissions and not on production. Or are they lying to us?

Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada from 1990 to 2021, by province (in million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent)*

The chart shown https://www.statista.com/statistics/481142/greenhouse-gas-emissions-in-canada-by-province/ is courtesy of statista.com

Despite talk of further consultation with the sector as the regulations are developed, the oil and gas industry is frustrated by the move. The sector also faces a rising national carbon price, clean fuel standards and new rules to cut methane emissions.

“We strongly oppose an emissions cap and it is unnecessary to meet Canada’s Paris commitments,” Tristan Goodman, head of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, said Wednesday.

Perhaps the aren’t prepared to match the lies flowing from the war room. Otherwise, they shouldn’t have any problem with the emission cuts.

|Read more https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-oilpatch-ottawa-new-cap-trade-emissions-plan| calgaryherald.com/opinion/colu…

#abpoli #emissions #COP28 #NEP #lies #WarRoom #media #cuts #oil #gas #environment #politics