The climate challenge

Twenty twenty-three was the warmest year on record [2]. It was characterized by extreme storms, terrestrial and marine heatwaves, melting of the cryosphere and rising seas. Atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ exceeded 418 parts per million (ppm) in 2022, up from 357 ppm in 1992 and more than 50 percent above the preindustrial level [3]. The passage of crucial environmental tipping points, such as desiccation of the Amazon rain forest, looks inevitable because the causes of climate change continue to grow [4]. Humanity has pumped more CO₂ into the atmosphere since the UNFCCC was signed than in all of preceding human history [5]. Emissions are still rising [6].

The COP28 agreement acknowledges that “progress on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation … are not yet collectively on track toward achieving the purpose of the Paris Agreement.” It emphasizes the importance of “urgent action and support” this decade to avoid exceeding 1.5°C of warming. It “recognizes” that doing so will require “deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.” As with all past COP agreements, the devil is in the detail of how to ensure that actors undertake necessary action. The COP28 agreement leaves it to individual states to implement their own nationally determined actions. They remain free to do as much or as little as they wish.

Among the many topics addressed at COP28, arguably the most important were formal operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) to compensate poor countries harmed by climate change, and a long-overdue call for the world to move away from—but not to phase out—fossil fuels. As with previous COPs’ outcomes, caveats abound.

Funding loss and damage?

Pledges to the LDF made at COP28 totaled about $700 million. That sum compares with annual need estimated to approach $600 billion by 2030 [7]. Increasing LDF funding by about 850 times within seven years is a very tall order, to say the least. The COP28 agreement merely “urges” developed countries and “encourages other” countries—meaning China and other capable states not designated in the UNFCCC as “developed”—to make contributions. While operationalization of the fund is progress, not least because it recognizes that reparations have a role in international climate governance, there is much doubt about whether it will be any more effective than the many other funds to aid poorer countries initiated at previous COPs.

For example, it is debatable whether LDF funding will materialize faster than did promises by developed states at COP15 to provide developing countries with $100 billion annually for mitigation and adaptation. As the COP28 agreement points out, that amount was not vouchsafed by the promised date. Despite decades of pleading from poor countries for adaptation assistance, all the COP28 declaration could manage was to “urge” developed countries to “prepare to report” that assistance. This is indicative of the enthusiasm among donor states to increase funding to meet the growing needs of poor countries that will come in the future. Consistent with this, the target of $300 million in new financing for the Adaption Fund, which would be well short of actual need, was not met at COP28. According to UNEP, financial aid for adaptation actually fell in 2021 [8].

Cutting fossil fuels?

As Nature has observed, “There is only one viable path forward, and that is for everybody to phase out almost all fossil fuels as quickly as possible” [9]. Yet, the COP28 agreement only calls on governments to “contribute” to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” This may be progress, but much is left to interpretation.

What does it mean to “contribute” to the transition effort? One state may view it as rapidly ending its use of fossil fuels, while another may interpret it as using more natural gas, which the COP28 agreement implicitly classifies as a “transition” fuel. Indeed, what does it mean to “transition”? Does it entail rapid action to wean economies off coal, oil and natural gas, or does it mean maximizing the use of them in the short term, which seems to be China’s approach as it sets records for mining and burning coal? To current and wannabe petrostates, the pressure to transition as slowly as possible is overwhelming. Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia nor the US will stop drilling anytime soon.

How are “energy systems” defined? Do they include shipping and aviation, or only electricity generation and the like? How will “just,” “orderly” and “equitable” be defined? For small-island states, just, orderly and equitable means that every capable actor needs to cut out fossil fuels quickly, but for many developing countries it means that they should be allowed to continue using them. For most of OPEC, equity means allowing members to profit from their fossil fuel addiction for as long as possible, short of full compensation from other states.

In the COP28 agreement’s more than 200 paragraphs, coal is mentioned only once, and then by merely calling on states to accelerate moves “towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.” Abated coal—again, more interpretation—remains officially approved. Oil and natural gas do not warrant specific mentions. Despite more than three decades of warnings from scientists, less than 0.5 percent of the paragraphs in the COP28 agreement mention the fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis.

According to the Global Carbon Project, staying below 1.5°C requires ending carbon emissions within about a decade [6]. No reasonable person with any knowledge of the COP process could expect such a thing to happen. After all, at COP26, states pledged to phase down (unabated) coal. Global coal use subsequently rose. It may peak soon, but many new coal-fired plants are under construction and planned [10].

Incredibly, the means to transition away from fossil fuels do not yet include ending all subsidies for them. The COP28 agreement only calls for “phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions.” Many will interpret this as giving a pass to subsidies that can, by any nationally determined measure, be interpreted as being efficient, while also allowing inefficient subsidies that “address poverty or just transitions,” however that is defined. Nobody knows the pathway, in our current political world, for rapidly reducing $7 trillion in annual subsidies to zero [11].

The limits of climate diplomacy

According to the United Nations, the COP28 agreement “signals the ‘beginning of the end’ of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance” [12]. There it is in black-and-white: after more than three decades of negotiations, we have arrived at the beginning. The UN’s hopes are commendable, but climate diplomacy has been an abject failure if one measures success by actively avoiding climate disasters and adequately helping those most harmed by them. COP28 confirms that there is no diplomatic solution to climate change. Diplomacy and international agreements are simply not up to the task.

Diplomacy did not prevent or mitigate the latest wars in Gaza and Ukraine, not to mention many other ongoing wars. Diplomacy has failed to bring agreements to end world poverty. International institutions were unable to stop the spread of Covid-19. Climate change is a more existential threat than even war, poverty and deadly pathogens because it will make all of those problems worse. Nevertheless, it was always asking too much of diplomacy to do what is needed to avert and now to address adequately the climate crisis. COP negotiations are, by definition, designed to protect and promote the perceived interests of sovereign states [13]. When vested interests are at stake, those interests come first. That is true within societies, which have institutions for taking on those interests. It is even more true in international governance, where such institutions do not exist.

This does not mean that the COP process, including COP28, is worthless. It has probably nudged states to do a bit more than they might have done. But COPs are just too feeble compared to the wicked problem of climate change. Each COP is like a small rubber band trying to restrain a locomotive. Enough bands may slow it, but not anytime soon. COP28, like COPs 1–27, was a very small step forward. That was all it could ever be.