COP28: 'Exciting’ language on fossil fuels and a major climate march on day 9 of the UN summit

As is typical on the Saturday midway through COP, today is the global day of climate action. We’ll see climate campaigners take to the avenues inside the UN-run blue zone at 3.30pm GST, putting pressure on negotiators for an ambitious COP28 deal. This COP28 venue is huge — practically the size of a city — but is tightly governed by the UN Climate Secretariat. Civil society groups say the rules on protest have been “way more restrictive” than at any COP before, including last year in Egypt. Specifically, it’s protests for Palestine that they claim have been restricted to an unprecedented degree, as we covered in the blog yesterday. Undeterred, activists say there is no climate justice without peace, and they will be marching in solidarity with Gazans as well as calling for a fossil fuel phase out and other key climate demands. “We will be marching with banner that says ceasefire now, end occupation,” Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want told reporters yesterday. This language has been highly contested, and campaigners say they are still forbidden from naming Israel, or carrying Palestinian flags. Good morning from Dubai! The 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, or COP28, is entering its ninth day. The themes for today are nature, land use and oceans. The world reached a major deal to protect nature at the UN biodiversity conference last year, which took place just after the COP27 climate summit. So COP28 is an important occasion to bring these twin crises into conversation — and see how the agreement to restore at least 30 per cent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030 aligns with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C. As for keeping 1.5C in sight: negotiations are continuing. A new version of the core text being discussed at COP8 — the Global Stocktake- was released yesterday afternoon, to some cautious optimism from developing countries and campaigners. It includes four possible choices on fossil fuels, which all refer to a phase out, rather than a phase down. BREAKING— Simon Evans (@DrSimEvans) #COP28 new text on global stocktake Now 5 options on fossil fuel phaseout: 1⃣phase out all fossil fuels in line w/ science 2⃣as above + 1.5C + Paris principles 3⃣”unabated” + peak + “predominantly” FF free 2050 4⃣unabated + net-zero 5⃣”no text” https://t.co/NtOc6QPYfw pic.twitter.com/kTcilhS3E1 December 8, 2023 “We are excited about the possibility of strong language on phasing out fossil fuels coming out of this COP,” says ActionAid USA’s Director of Policy and Campaigns, Brandon Wu. But greater climate finance is key to bridging an agreement between developed and developing countries. “A global fossil fuel phaseout that isn’t backed up by financial support for developing countries will place unrealistic and impossible expectations on those countries, many of which are already locked into destructive cycles of debt and extraction,” adds Wu. The possibility of an ambitious deal on fossil fuels has got OPEC+ rattled. In a leaked letter seen by the Guardian newspaper yesterday, the oil cartel has warned its member countries with “utmost urgency” that “pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences” at COP28. Catch up with our coverage of COP28 yesterday, where children were centre stage, and civil society groups said they were facing unprecedented levels of restriction around protest: