Cop28 live: presidency said to be preparing final package for delegates - The Guardian

Cop28 live: presidency said to be preparing final package for delegates | Cop28 | The Guardian

On Saturday’s Global Day of Action, activists, including Indigenous from Mexico, mounted demonstrations around the conference site, under strict conditions from the organisers. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Presidency said to be preparing final package for delegates

Fiona Harvey

Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s climate envoy, made this call on Sunday morning:
“There is a real urgency of action to keep the planetary pain threshold of 1.5° in reach. Today is the day the presidency takes over primary responsibility for figuring out what the most ambitious version of an outcome package can be at this COP. The COP presidency has reiterated many times that they are here to facilitate an ambitious decision. This means there needs to be strong language on the phase out of fossil fuels in line with 1.5C. At the same time, it is clear that least developed countries will not be able to go at the same speed as G20 economic powerhouses. They have to meet development needs but also have the opportunity now to leapfrog unsustainable decisions. This is why we need a package that combines energy transition and energy access. As the presidency takes us into “Majlis” (elder council formats), the question is: can we rise to the occasion and bring up the balance of the package to enable acceleration across the board. Or will we allow a small group of actors to tear down the chance of a historic decision that would give our businesses and our markets clarity about the long-term direction of travel.”

Her call for action heralds the crunch point of Cop28, with only two and a half official days of negotiations left. The presidency, as we’ve noted before, is now in the pivotal position to direct these talks to their conclusion. The Presidency is now said to be preparing a final package for delegates. There needs to be more progress in adaptation. Developing countries demand this, quite reasonably, for a “balanced package” – that is, one that addresses the needs of the poor world as well as the push by developed and developing countries, to keep 1.5 alive.

Some are concerned that the presidency is being over ambitious by seeking to present this in one long take. But everyone knows where the key fault line is, so for the presidency to present this might not be the gamble it seems to some. This Cop is unusual in comparison to some others in that the most contentious issues are a matter for formal Cop decisions, not just the cover decision, which is a catch all outcome reflecting all the myriad discussions held during the fortnight and that has less formal force under the UNFCCC and Paris agreement. By contrast, the global stocktake (GST) process requires a formal Cop decision, as it is mandated under the 2015 Paris agreement.

So the key question remains: will the final decisions of the Cop on the GST include a phase out of fossil fuels? There are some positive signs. China, previously a blocker, is now making clear it will accept some form of compromise (it can sometimes be difficult to interpret the gnomic utterances of China’s veteran delegation chief Xie Zhenhua, but what was clear from the small press conference the Guardian attended by him yesterday is that China is actively talking about forms of words that could be used).

Other countries also appear to be engaging constructively, according to negotiators. But Saudi Arabia is still holding out. (Russia is too but has generally not liked to be the last holdout at previous Cops – and with next year’s Cop coming close to home, in Azerbaijan, that could keep Russia from too obviously wrecking this one). Sultan Al Jaber is the key figure here. UAE is a close ally of Saudi Arabia. The countries do not have identical interests – one insider described them to me as like brothers, and brothers don’t always see eye to eye but they still have strong ties. But they have close relations. Al Jaber has engaged intensively with Saudi – he told me just before this Cop that they were engaging with him “positively, constructively”. Now is his moment of truth.

The whole point of having a Cop in an oil producing neighbour and close ally of Saudi Arabia is that this is the time for Saudi Arabia to show who they really are. Will they follow UAE and agree to strong language in fossil fuels? Or will they hold out as their Opec letter demanded? If there was ever a rationale to having Sultan Al Jaber as Cop president, this is that point.

Cop28 using an out-of-date number for global heating, warn scientists

The Cop28 negotiating text is using an out-of-date number of 1.1°Celsius for the global heating caused by humanity to date. The true figure is about 1.3C, according to Richard Betts at the UK Met Office.

That matters, he told The Guardian: “It’s important because it shows we’re actually closer to 1.5C. So the urgency is even greater, both for reducing emissions and also for adaptation as well.” The 1.5C is the limit in the Paris Agreement, set to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

The 1.1C figure for the temperature rise caused by global heating is from the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But it is the average for the period from 2011 to 2020, meaning it effectively represents 2015.

But emissions and global heating have continued to surge since 2020. A new analysis by Betts and colleagues finds the human-caused temperature rise today is 1.3C.

This assessment is based on the average across 20 years: the decade up to 2023 and the projected future temperatures to 2032. That 20–year method is in fact consistent with the way the IPCC already deals with future temperatures, Betts said.

Global food production 'problematic' even at 1.5C, warns US envoy

Fiona Harvey

Farming and food production around the world will suffer severe impacts from the climate crisis even if the world does manage to hold global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the US special envoy for global food security, Cary Fowler, told the Guardian at Cop28.

“Agriculture will have significant problems at 1.5C, it’s going to be even more problematic than today,” he warned. “The worst years climatically for agriculture in the past will be the best years for agriculture in the future. That is pretty sobering. We have to do everything we can to reduce global warming.”

Temperature rises will affect all aspects of food production, he warned. “Heat affects all aspects of a plant’s growth cycle,” he warned, from germination to ripening, and the timing of the plant’s development.
Farmers harvest peanut at Bani Hara agricultural field in district of El-Haouaria in Tunisia. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

He said more research was needed into how to make food crops more resilient to extreme weather. “In many countries, we’ve had stagnation in agricultural research and development,” he said. “If you look back, we have counted on incremental increases in agricultural productivity, but we can’t do that now.”

He said agricultural productivity had been declining in some areas of Africa, and globally was increasing by about 1.14% a year, when it needed to increase by about 1.91% a year to meet the world’s food needs by 2050.

Fowler is also particularly concerned about poor diets. In parts of Africa, childhood stunting impacts about a third of children, which is storing up massive problems for their future mental development and the fate of those countries. The key to preventing childhood stunting is diversity in the diet – this is not just a question of getting more calories to children, but in getting different sorts of foodstuffs, such as a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as starchy staples, into their diets.

“This is somewhere we really need to make a difference,” he said.

Emissions trading could become ‘black box’, experts warn

Patrick Greenfield

Proposals on country-to-country emissions trading could become a “black box” that undermines the integrity of the Paris agreement, experts have warned.

Alongside language on fossil fuels and climate adaptation, governments are negotiating the rules for the carbon market that underpins the Paris agreement in Dubai.

Once operational, large polluters like the UK and Saudi Arabia will be able to purchase carbon credits from states with major carbon sinks such as Brazil and Indonesia to meet their own national contributions towards limiting global heating. But there are concerns that if countries agree on weak rules, worthless credits could be generated by the system - undermining efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

New text on country-to-country emissions trading was published on Saturday evening, covered by Article 6.2 of the Paris agreement. It no longer includes rules or guidance on confidentiality of carbon deals, meaning that governments would never have to make public details of the agreement, provoking widespread concern.

Erika Lennon, senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law, said: “Even after a year of scandals exposing widespread failure and fraud in the carbon market, negotiators seem not to have learned any lessons. The latest proposals for carbon trading under discussion lack any meaningful oversight and transparency. Accepting them would be a win for carbon cowboys and a massive loss for people and the planet.”

Gilles Dufrasne, policy lead with Carbon Market Watch, said: “Article 6.2 is about to become a black box. To shine a light on carbon trades, we need at least to have clear limits on confidentiality provisions, real consequences for countries that don’t play by the rules and guardrails against countries that want to backtrack on the activities they have authorised. The current text doesn’t include any of that.”

Climate Policy Analyst Catalina Gonda said: “The decisions made by countries at COP28 regarding the rules for carbon markets will have direct and substantial consequences for both the climate and communities on the ground. The eagerness to implement Article 6.2 should not come at the cost of compromising on robust rules. The text we have today undermines the Paris Agreement, and jeopardizes transparency and accountability”.

Joab Okanda, Senior Climate Adviser at Christian Aid in Kenya, was similarly scathing: “A blank sheet of paper would be as effective as the UNFCCC carbon market rules as they stand. It’s an insult to the people in parts of Africa that are facing the very real threat of losing their homes and access to their land. If the negotiations end like this, the carbon colonialists will come knocking, and being able to do anything about it will become incredibly difficult.”

UK food tsar: ‘Stand up to the big food companies’

Fiona Harvey

Henry Dimbleby, UK food tsar, is at Cop28 to talk about global food systems. He told us governments would need to step up, and stand up to the big food companies. “In the end, what you need is regulation.” He said food had been largely ignored at previous Cops, including Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, so it was good to see the issue highlighted in Dubai, but governments were still long on talk and short on action. “We need to look at this globally, at how we share resources such as land and how to create incentives to shape a food system that feeds the world, sequesters carbon and restores biodiversity.”
Henry Dimbleby, UK food tsar, who attended Cop28 to talk about global food systems. Photograph: Fiona Harvey

Human Rights Day unease at restrictions on protest

My colleague Nina Lakhani reports civil society groups have been extremely frustrated at the restrictions placed on public protest at Cop28 particularly in relation to calling out human rights violations in the UAE and Palestine. Still, every day, frontline activists have done small actions calling for a cease fire in Gaza. “There is no climate justice without human rights,” has been the rallying call. Today the protest is also calling for the release of human rights and environmental defenders across the world including British Egyptian campaigner Alaa Abd el-Fattah who is imprisoned in Egypt.
United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai Climate activists protest during the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, 10 December 2023. Photograph: Amr Alfiky/Reuters

Others noted that today is the 75th anniversary of the universal declaration human rights. Asad Rehman, director of War on Want, said: “Our struggle for human rights is connected to all movements and struggles for economic justice, for social justice and gender justice. Our message to the people negotiating is that we have a different vision of the world because we believe in the power of the people to transform this society into one that is fair and just.”

Earlier, the climate campaign group 350.0rg disrupted the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at their youth event atCop28. In a statement, the group urged organisers to include vulnerable communities and campaigners in the discussion on how to address global heating. “Civil society and communities most impacted by the climate crisis must be at the forefront of conversations in spaces likeCop28 and it’s imperative we have the freedom to publicly critique government policy, protest and lobby for climate justice.”

Vulnerable countries concerned about ‘weak’ adaptation text

Damian Carrington

Delegates from vulnerable countries are very concerned about the weak progress being made at Cop28 on adaptation i.e. the plans and funding desperately needed to protect people from the escalating impacts of the climate crisis. The UN Environment Programme said in November that $215bn - $387bn a year is needed - in 2021, but just $21bn was provided. (See also earlier posts today from Nina Lakhani and a guest post from Mohamed Adow.)

Sandeep Chamling Rai, at WWF: “Vulnerable communities desperately need more finance to build resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis. However the text only reiterates the longstanding call for developed countries to double adaptation finance without providing a clear roadmap to deliver it.”

“The text is also missing concrete global targets. It is also concerning to see the target to protect 30% of land by 2030 now missing. Nature is an ally in limiting the impacts of the climate crisis and that must be recognised and acted on.”

Obed Koringo, based in Nairobi for CARE Denmark: “It is disappointing to see that negotiations on adaptation are hurtling towards a damaging global failure. We are afraid that it will have catastrophic consequences for communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, especially in Africa.”

“Developed countries have committed to at least double adaptation finance by 2025 - a detailed roadmap is the only way to achieve this. This must set out what individual developed countries plan to provide by 2025 and how this adds up to $40 billion annually.

“Failure to invest in adaptation, including early warning systems, flood defences and drought-resistant crops, will only increase the costs of loss and damage in the long run.”

Simon Evans, at Carbon Brief, has tweeted details of the latest draft text:

➡️no brackets + only 3 options, on principles ➡️it's very heavily qualitative, not quantitative ➡️only vague link to finance ➡️only governance targets are quantitative ➡️starts 2yr work prog on progress indicatorshttps://t.co/NtOc6QPYfwpic.twitter.com/wQ4MygGJiE

Cop28 president: ‘The time has come for us to switch gears’

The Cop28 president Al Jaber is speaking in a media scrum that includes my colleague Fiona Harvey. She says he is calling for consensus on two key issues: fossil fuels and financing for a just transition.

“The time has come for us to switch gears,” Al Jaber said. “We need text agreed by everyone on greenhouse gases. That is a point I will keep pressure on …. None of this is surprise. That is how this process works. It boils down to the need for all parties to come to terms (with the fact) that we will deliver the highest ambition. All parties should come to terms with this fact.”

Hello everyone. This is Jonathan Watts taking over the liveblog from my colleague Natalie Hanman.

With just over two days remaining of the official schedule, Cop28 is now immersed in the nitty gritty of the negotiations. This is the part that will determine whether Dubai is a success or a failure. There is a lot of work to do. The texts are riddled with brackets denoting disagreements and unresolved alternatives, including on the crunch question of whether to phase out, phase down or otherwise come to terms with the root cause of climate breakdown: fossil fuels.

Thirty one years after the Earth Summit that launched these discussions, isn’t it astounding that it has taken until now to get to this fundamental issue?

Feel free to email me at jon.watts@theguardian.com with comments and suggestions on this or anything else.

Thank you for reading the liveblog. I am now handing over to Jonathan Watts (jonathan.watts@theguardian.com). Here’s a brief summary of developments so far today:

The Cop Presidency is now said to be preparing a final package for delegates, at a crunch point for Cop28, with only two and a half official days of negotiations left.

A draft text on the global goal on adaptation was published. It has been described as “disappointing” and “weak”.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation published the first instalment in its roadmap on reforming food and farming. Thin on detail, the report is not enough to get us off the “high-pollution, high-fossil-fuel, high-hunger track we are on”, said one expert.
Reforming the world’s food systems will be a key step in limiting global temperature rises, the UN said on Sunday. Photograph: Jonathan Kirn/Getty Images

Reaction is coming in to the UN FAO’s first instalment of a roadmap towards farming that can feed the world while not driving global heating past 1.5C. You can read Fiona Harvey’s news story on the road map here.

Craig Hanson, Managing Director of Programs, World Resources Institute:

“How to feed the planet by 2050 without destroying it in the process is one of the grand challenges of our time. This roadmap is a welcome reminder that the answer involves sustainably boosting crop and livestock yields, reducing food loss and waste and shifting diets – all amidst a changing climate.”

“Rich countries will need to nudge people toward less meat-centric diets, and advance technologies and practices to drive down agricultural emissions. Low-income countries will need to sustainably boost crop and livestock productivity. Smallholder farmers will need far more assistance to adapt to extreme weather. And all these changes will need to happen without further sacrificing forests for agriculture.”

Emile Frison, member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems:
“Laying out a plan to eliminate extreme hunger and the third of greenhouse gas emissions from food systems is not an easy task. This roadmap puts a huge emphasis on incremental improvements to the current industrial food system – but this is a flawed system that is wrecking nature, polluting the environment, and starving millions of people. These efficiency-first proposals are unlikely to be enough. The next stage will need to go much further in … tackling the massive power inequalities imposed by the handful of companies that define what we grow and eat.”

Sophia Murphy, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy:
“FAO’s roadmap offers a welcome focus on the right to food in the cacophony of food interests that have descended on COP. The report mentions a host of critical issues, including farm income, farm worker rights and women’s empowerment. Disappointingly, the report neglects to call on big agricultural companies to make real emissions reductions, especially in rich countries where cutting methane and nitrous oxide emissions from industrial animal operations is a low-hanging fruit.”

Appolinaire Djikeng, International Livestock Research Institute:
“The [FAO] strategy makes valuable and pragmatic recommendations for increasing climate finance to help improve the productivity of livestock systems in low-income countries. This would strengthen a sector that provides vital and scarce sources of high quality nutrition and rural livelihoods for almost two billion people. A new African narrative for livestock is needed to fully differentiate the needs and challenges facing small-scale producers from the industrialised systems in the Global North.”

Developing countries bloc say fossil fuel phaseout must be fully financed and fair
Nina Lakhani

A spokesperson from a negotiating bloc that represents more than half the world’s populationsaid that any fossil fuel phase-out target must be fully financed and centred on the equity principles enshrined in the climate convention and the 2015 Paris agreement.

“As a group we want to see the developed countries taking the lead on mitigation. In each session they are pushing and pressuring developing countries to do more and more, without providing the means of implementation, without accepting that a phase out has to be differentiated to be fair and equitable – and while they are still expanding fossil fuel production,” said Diego Pacheco, a Bolivian negotiator and spokesperson for the bloc of Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDC).

The bloc of 20 nations – which includes India, China, Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Syria, Sudan and Vietnam – are politically, socially and economically diverse but like minded in terms of insisting that international climate action respect the convention and the Paris Agreement, particularly in relation to the principle of equity and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) enshrined in the Paris agreement and the UNFCCC.

Developing countries have for years called out wealthier countries for cherrypicking from the convention, Paris Agreement and the IPCC reports. According to Pacheco, global emission reduction targets should take into account CBDR and equity, but developing countries face a constant fight to get these core elements into the text. “The Paris agreement is based on a bottom-up approach, so each country will address issues according to their own national circumstances. The only acceptable qualifier would be a fossil fuel phase out financed by developed countries, based on equity and CBDR,” said Pacheco.

In 2021, India and China were blamed by the US, UK and other developed countries for watering down the historic agreement to phase down – rather than phase out – coal at Cop26. The UK and US have already moved away from coal, but continue to expand oil and gas production.

India, the world’s most populous country (1.4bn) and the fifth largest economy, is the driver behind equitable access to carbon space, pushing for historic CO2 contributions to be taken into account in any discussion about phase out and mitigation.

Meena Raman, a climate policy expert and head of programmes at the Third World Network (TWN), said: “Many countries including India are energy poor, and while they are actively promoting solar and other renewable energies, they need more time and finance to transition away from coal, that is the reality. We need to be honest about what countries need to implement mitigation – finance, capacity building, technology – so they can achieve their NDCs and keep the hope of 1.5 alive, adapt to climate change and still meet the basic needs of their people. Otherwise any new target will just be playing to the gallery.”

The US is this year’s number one producer of oil and gas, and the number one exporter of gas and petroleum products. A recent report by Oil Change International found that five countries – UK, US, Norway, Canada and Australia – account for more than half the planned oil and gas expansion between now and 2050.

Meanwhile civil society groups are warning that the US, UK and other allied developed economies appear to be embracing fossil fuel phase out language, while simultaneously blocking fair climate finance and pushing to erase any reference to equity and just transition from the final text. Rachel Rose Jackson from Corporate Accountability said:
“The stage is set for the US to save the day again while blaming global south countries simply for demanding equity and fairness. At Cop28 the US is continuing its legacy of hocus pocus.” People walk near al Wasl Dome in Dubai. Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA

Machines to magic carbon out of the air, artificial intelligence, indoor vertical farms to grow food for our escape to Mars, and even solar-powered “responsible” yachts: the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai has been festooned with the promise of technological fixes for worsening global heating and ecological breakdown, writes Oliver Milman.

But this fixation has alarmed some scientists and climate activists, who warn that technologies are being used to distract from the primary task of stopping fossil fuels being burned.

Total current technology-based CO2 removal, excluding nature-based means such as planting new forests, removes just 0.01m tonnes of CO2, according to recent research, which is more than a million times smaller than current fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

Despite its small scale, voluminous carbon removal techniques are relied upon in many climate models and plans by countries and companies to avoid breaching a 1.5C rise in global temperatures since pre-industrial times and unleashing catastrophic heatwaves, droughts, floods and other impacts.

Colombia’s environment minister Susana Muhamad has said she is helping to build a coalition of countries in favour of ambitious language on phasing out fossil fuels at Cop28 ahead of tense final negotiations.

Muhamad, whose president Gustavo Petro announced Colombia was backing a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty in the climate summit, said the group would then speak with Saudi Arabia, India and other influential countries as a bloc.

“We want a phase out of production and consumption. We want 1.5C. We want a 43% reduction [of fossil fuels] by 2030. If we don’t reach 2030, there is not another opportunity to do this,” she told the Guardian. “We should not be hostage to the economic plans of countries when this is the requirement. “

Muhamad has been a leading voice at the climate summit in plenaries calling for strong language on cutting emissions.

El compromiso para alcanzar las metas del Acuerdo de París, debe ser de todas las naciones. Para lograrlo debemos avanzar en la reducción progresiva de los combustibles fósiles y mirar un nuevo modelo económico. Esta fue mi intervención en la Plenaria Oficial de la #COP28. pic.twitter.com/8o4hc33b0z

“We are working on building a consolidated position and common thinking around these issues so we have a stronger voice. We’re trying to align a bloc of countries to land some text around [fossil fuels] that we can then use to start engaging with China, Saudi Arabia and India in the potential negotiations,” she said.

“Adaptation is the most important thing for us. Some countries are putting a lot of obstacles into this so that they can negotiate on the other parts of the agreement. For us, adaptation goals have to be agreed at this Cop. Otherwise it’s a message that the lives of people in the Global South don’t matter. We are already in the process of adaptation. The climate is already changing. That’s why 1.5C is critical. After 1.5C, adaptation will be super expensive or impossible,” said Muhamad.

“The Sultan is being very clear that he wants 1.5C to be alive and on a 2030 delivery. So, it’s obvious we need to talk about fossil fuels. I think we can get an agreement. We have to make future arrangements for a future phasing out,” she said.