COP28: UN Climate Change Conference: “Beginning of the End” for Fossils?

Towards the end of what is probably the hottest year on record, the world has decided – at least tentatively – to turn away from the accelerant of the climate crisis. Not everyone feels like celebrating.

For almost 30 years, the global community has wanted to get global warming under control at climate conferences. Nevertheless, it was only now, in an oil state of all places, that the main driver of the crisis – fossil fuels – was even mentioned. A “day of great joy,” as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced after the decision in Dubai?

Some celebrated the “beginning of the end” of the fossil era. But many believe that a consistent fight against the crisis has to look different.

Although all states have set themselves the goal of saying goodbye to fossil fuels, the two-week meeting was unable to establish a clear roadmap for phasing out coal, oil and gas – even though more than 100 states were in favor of this. Instead, backdoors remain for controversial technologies and formulations that give states a lot of leeway in what they specifically derive from them.

Tears of joy and outrage at the same time

“The course correction we needed has not been achieved,” said Samoa’s representative, Anne Rasmussen, visibly outraged on behalf of the particularly threatened island states – a few minutes after conference president Sultan Al-Jaber banged the gavel on the table and the supposedly unanimous vote applauded the result. The island state representatives were not even in the plenary session at that time. While others shed tears of joy, the delegates from the islands later shed tears for other reasons.

“We cannot return to our islands with the message that this process has betrayed us,” said Rasmussen, explaining that the group of states still had to coordinate. A number of delegates spontaneously stood up and clapped. A sign of solidarity, but without consequences. The Emirati host al-Jaber thanked him for speaking and announced that he wanted to reflect. But it was too late to make changes to the decision.

Unequal power at the negotiating table

The dramatic end in Dubai highlights a fundamental conflict at world climate conferences: the countries that are already hardest hit by the escalating crisis do not have much negotiating power and are often ignored. But they suffer the most from increasingly severe and frequent droughts, heat waves, storms and floods.

In Dubai, however, the lobby for coal, oil and gas was powerful and in droves. According to data analysis by activists, at least 2,456 Fossil representatives were accredited at the UN meeting – four times more than in Egypt last year. Remarkable: The lobbyists received more access passes than all delegations from the ten countries most vulnerable to global warming combined. Somalia, Chad, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Micronesia, Tonga, Eritrea as well as Sudan, Liberia and the Solomon Islands together only provided 1,509 delegates. Lili Fuhr from the US organization Center for International Environment Law complained that the halls and pavilions were literally “flooded” by lobbyists.

Pressure was also building behind the scenes, as an incendiary letter from the OPEC oil cartel leaked by the Guardian revealed: It bluntly called for the blocking of ambitious decisions to phase out coal, oil and gas.

Dubious double role of the host

Environmental activists suspected that this would also meet with open ears from conference leader Al-Jaber, who is also head of the state oil company Adnoc. Finally, Adnoc is also planning to invest billions in fossil fuel projects – “a surefire recipe for accelerating catastrophic climate change,” says a report by the organizations Urgewald, Lingo, Reclaim Finance and Banktrack. In fact, the Adnoc Group says it plans to increase its oil production by 25 percent by 2030.

And so it continues: next year’s World Climate Conference will once again take place in an oil state, namely Azerbaijan. This is “highly problematic,” said the political director of Germanwatch, Christoph Bals. There are also major problems with corruption there.