Building trust key to meet climate goals: COP28 CEO - Economic Times
Building trust key to meet climate goals: COP28 CEO - The Economic Times
COP28, the
UAE has the daunting task of crafting an engagement that prompts all countries to work together to achieve the
climate goals set in Paris.
With less than six months to go for this year’s UN climate summit in Dubai, the focus needs to shift to implementation, where collaboration and cooperation are crucial.
The UAE is pursuing a solutions-based approach. “How do we recreate the idea that we can bring everybody around a more optimistic vision of what the future could look like? And how do we craft a pathway or directions in which we need to go for the next 70-year period to achieve the
Paris Agreement?” said
Adnan Amin, CEO of COP28. His answer is simple: trust among countries.
“In the negotiation process, everybody will come with a position based on their perception of their role in the process. Our job is to establish trust among bodies,” Amin said. “I think trust is the missing denominator right now.”
He believes the UAE is best positioned to help bridge the trust deficit in the climate talks. “That's what we see and what we bring to the table... We have trust with developing countries and developed countries,” he said. “We think everybody in principle is open to a progressive way. But there needs to be a restoration of confidence.”
But trust isn’t an easy commodity. Concerns have been raised about the suitability not just of the UAE as host, but whether the CEO of an oil and gas company can be entrusted with heading a process that calls for a shift away from fossil fuels?
Amin said this perception is “unfortunate”. He claimed the UAE is taking a “problem-solving approach”.
According to him, the focus on emissions is not an argument for continued use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will continue to be used for all sorts of non-combustion uses such as plastics and fertilisers. Therefore, there is a need to attack the problem at its root, that is, emissions that are causing climate change, he said. “What we are saying is that, how do we reduce emissions at a scale that we need to remain within the 1.5C?”
In laying out the UAE’s perspective, the Kenyan-born diplomat touches on another facet of the trust deficit that plagues multilateral climate talks: double standards.
“The countries whose legislators sign letters asking the COP28 president-designate (Sultan Al Jaber) to resign are the same ones that come to you (oil producing countries like the UAE) when they have an energy insecurity issue after the conflict in Europe, asking you to increase your production. We have to be careful that we don’t have double standards,” he said.
Shifting away from fossil fuels will require developing alternatives, which in turn requires adequate investments.
Multiple analyses and reports, including those by the International Energy Agency (IEA), have highlighted the uneven financial flows with bulk of the investments in clean energy limited to developed countries and China. At the same time, governments in developing countries are confronted with growing energy needs.
“This is the issue in the south,” Amin said. “I'm involved in a lot of discussions on energy transition in African countries, some of them have discovered oil and gas, and they are poised to decide.
They have growing populations; they have huge energy needs for their growing economies. They want to lift people out of poverty, they want to provide economic options for their people. What are their options?”
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”