The last two Conferences of the Parties attracted unprecedented attention from governments and activists around the world. A lot of this was due to the climate emergency that is becoming impossible to dismiss or talk down, even for the wilfully blind.

The baking hot summer of 2023 — the hottest year on record — coupled simultaneously with unprecedented extreme weather events in other parts of the world underscore the reality that our climate presents a clear and present emergency that we must deal with now through bold, decisive action.

Unfortunately, the Dubai COP28, just like Sharm El-Sheik before it, was a failure. Of course, we are always happy to rattle off some incremental wins, but the reality is that —and as we will see later on in the excerpts taken from the Global Stocktake summary — COP is not fit for purpose.

This and other agencies or processes tasked with resolving the climate emergency are not insulated from the gridlock that often plays out in United Nations’ organs. COP is a UN process and its painfully slow gains are not in themselves going to deliver the decisive victories that we need in the short to medium term.

Consider this: since the Conference of the Parties was launched:  

• CO2 emissions have been rising steadily instead of falling;
• Coal is still booming and in fact, China and India have set up more than 200GW of coal-power generation capacity since COP26 in Glasgow (the argument about how much green power they have set up does not really matter here);
• Demand for other fossil fuels like oil and gas is not likely to drop in the foreseeable future. In fact, according to the International Energy Agency, “demand for natural gas and oil will remain around 2030 ‘peak’ levels until at least 2050”;
• The Global North still has an insatiable appetite for cheap meat, cheap soybeans, cheap clothes, cheap technology, cheap palm oil, cheap coffee, cheap cocoa etc, and this will continue to drive the destruction of prime virgin forests in the Amazon, the Mekong Delta, the Congo Basin and elsewhere; and
• The US is never going to pay loss-and-damage money to China and Saudi Arabia, which caucus with developing countries in the G77+ network, and so there is going to be a lot of friction and foot-dragging before a serious loss-and-damage facility is developed (China still considers itself a developing country).

The outcomes document of the first Global Stocktake noted: “with concern the findings of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that policies implemented by the end of 2020 are projected to result in higher global greenhouse gas emissions than those implied by the nationally determined contributions…”.

COP28 did not change that.

The first thing to say about COP28 is that it was massive — the largest COP in history. The entire Dubai Expo Centre was deployed to host the event. Official assessments show that at least 84,000 people journeyed to Dubai for the event. Two thousand people followed the proceedings online.

In addition to the parties, at least 20,000 NGOs, CSOs and multinationals sent delegates. That is an incredible number of people. We are sure that this figure is understated because many people go to COP host cities and never show up at the event complex. They do their negotiations in other hotels and conference centres.

Maybe the decision to bring in that many people was an attempt by COP President Sultan Al-Jaber to “flood the zone”, i.e. to pack the event with oil and gas lobbyists and drown out any real effort by civil society to dominate the narrative with the need to drown out the 1.5°C agenda.

If that was the reason, then Sultan Al-Jaber’s efforts were all in vain because past off-the-cuff remarks to the effect that he was yet to see any science showing that the phasing out of fossil fuels would help slow down climate change resurfaced right before the conference.

The furore that ensued following the publication of the comments brought into sharp focus the question of who was really attending COP28, which in turn put a lot of pressure on Al-Jaber to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Perhaps the jubilant scenes on the last day after Saudi Arabia agreed to his text on fossil fuel phase down was him heaving a big sigh of relief after his clean-up act.

The Loss and Damage Fund

The Loss and Damage Fund was announced on the very first day of COP28. With hindsight, this may have been a good PR move to hide the emptiness that would follow. The Loss and Damage Fund itself currently pledges just under $1-billion from countries like Canada, Denmark, the EU, Japan, Norway, Slovenia(!), the United Arab Emirates and others.

Pledges! Pledges erode the idea of reparations for historical pollution and binding obligations on the part of historical polluters to contribute money to the countries that are currently dealing with the consequences of their bad development choices, or even those like South Africa that are expected to give up over 200 years’ worth of coal to save humanity.

Countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Uganda, etc are already dealing with multiple humanitarian crises caused by drought and unusually high mean ocean surface temperatures. Who is paying them for loss and damage? They did not cause the climate crisis.

The Congo Basin countries are not expected to touch another square inch of their virgin tropical forests. Who is stepping up to pay for the loss and damage there? The Horn of Africa is facing unprecedented drought. Even the Comoros Islands. A serious, binding, reparations-heavy loss-and-damage mechanism needs to be created as soon as possible.

Activists stage a protest on day 13 of the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference on 13 December, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo: Fadel Dawod/Getty Images)

Voluntary phasing down or phasing out of fossil fuels

Let us look at what was considered to be a win from the COP28 extra time, the Majlis or open discussion sit-down, in which Saudi Arabia agreed not to block the COP president’s text on fossil fuels. The COP president agreed to take the gathering into extra time after howls of protests from activists and developing nations who wanted a strong statement on ending fossil fuels before the final day, 13 December 2023.

This led to the much-hyped Majlis and the ensuing resolution that it produced. But then, what does the text really say? Most post-COP articles and analyses focused only on one sentence, but then here is the entire paragraph 28 of the first Global Stocktake document:

“Further recognizes the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5°C pathways and calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches:

“(a) Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030;

“(b) Accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power;

 “(c) Accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century;

“(d) Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science;

“(e) Accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilization and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production;

“(f) Accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030;

“(g) Accelerating the reduction of emissions from road transport on a range of pathways, including through development of infrastructure and rapid deployment of zero- and low-emission vehicles; and

“(h) Phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible.”

Here is what’s problematic: firstly, just, orderly and equitable can mean anything. It can be interpreted a thousand ways. Secondly, the onus is on countries to arrange their transition from fossil fuels within Nationally Determined Contributions as they see fit. With the rise of climate denialists in Europe and elsewhere, do you have a sense that this is going to be a major global priority? Dubai itself is a postmodern monument to oil. It has spawned copycat versions all over the Middle East and oil producers are doubling down on this “development” model. These countries are vowing to continue pumping oil literally like there is no tomorrow.

Thirdly, too much faith continues to be placed in carbon capture and usage or storage technology. This continues a trend of talking up geoengineering solutions, although there is no case where they have been shown to remove and sequester CO2 from the atmosphere as quickly and efficiently as forests.

Carbon markets

A lot of bilateral and multilateral discussions took place around the issue of carbon markets. The final resolution called for “enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries”, echoing sentiments that were shared at the Africa Climate Summit in September 2023.

Indeed, at the Africa Climate Summit, the COP28 president announced that Saudi Arabia would be investing up to $4.5-billion over the next decade in African carbon markets. As COP28 got underway, feature articles in Le Monde, The Guardian and others revealed that Qatar has signed long-term deals to take over millions of hectares of prime forest in Liberia, Tanzania, Kenya and the DRC for carbon markets.

Carbon markets are often done without the input of indigenous communities. Whatever money is raised ends up in capital cities or national budgets, significantly disadvantaging the custodians of what brought in the money in the first place. Another consequence of carbon markets is massive land grabs. A country like Liberia that is handing over up to 10% of its territory for carbon offset schemes will most certainly become the scene of gross human rights violations as authorities push people off the allotments or block access.

Bilaterals

Bilateral efforts continued as usual. Senegal is now the confirmed recipient of a $2.5-billion JETP. That is an interesting coincidence, isn’t it, considering that Senegal has just become a major producer of oil and gas?

While this partnership was being signed, Senegal was dealing with a mass exodus of its young population. Favourable waters (due to climate change of course), overfishing, limiting of access to areas around oil and gas projects by government security forces, and coastal erosion are causing an unprecedented number of young people to sell their fishing boats and travel to Europe. At least half a million youth attempted the Mediterranean crossing in the second half of 2023.

All along Senegal’s coastline, there are homes where all the young men are gone. Their parents wait for the dreaded text message telling them that their son or daughter drowned at sea… or that they are in some refugee camp on the other side.

South Africa’s JETP funds grew to over $10-billion and this will certainly cause more angry discussions with the ruling African National Congress’ alliance partners as well as civil society organisations that want to see grants and not more loans.

Conclusion   

So how do we fix COP? Perhaps the biggest takeaway from successive COP failures is that we need to look beyond UN processes for really ambitious solutions to the climate crisis.

There is consensus among the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that to keep warming below 1.5°C or even 2°C, we need to cut at least 50% of all emissions. The only way to achieve that is through a thorough litigation of the hegemonic neoliberal capitalist model and its insatiable appetite for cheap labour and raw materials. COP cannot do that, although the Global Stocktake has called for more sustainable living.

The private sector must come to the party. We must also encourage massive transfers of technology from the Global North to the Global South and demand reparations from the companies that have caused global warming. A massive taxing of windfall profits of oil and gas companies is a good place to start.

We have to spend more time and money on alternative COPS that push a pluriverse of ecocentric alternatives like degrowth, cooperativism, communalism, slow living, agroecology, community artisans and markets etc. This should lead us to more ecocentric ontologies and progress models.

Private COPs often carry the voices of climate victims in a way that official COPs cannot do, with all the divisions that exist between Green Zones (areas created for meetings by the COP presidency) and Blue Zones (official areas where the Parties meet). DM

Dr Roland Ngam is programme manager for climate justice and socioecological transformation at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Southern Africa.

Dr Ibrahima Thiam is Project Manager for Climate Change in the Dakar office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.