At COP28, sticking points remain on fossil fuels and adapting to climate as talks near crunch time

Negotiators have been urged to narrow down their options so they can agree on how to save Earth from disastrous levels of warming and help vulnerable societies adapt to weather extremes as the clock runs down on United Nations climate talks.

COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber told journalists on Sunday that negotiators were “making good progress,” just not fast enough. So he was borrowing from Arab culture and convening a majlis Sunday afternoon, a new format for talks where he was bringing ministers from all countries to sit together in a circle, more as a conversation. He begged them to leave their objections and talking points behind.

Unlike most of the big group sessions, this one is not broadcast and closed to the public and media.

“I want everyone to come ready to be flexible and to accept compromise,” he said, as protesters could be heard nearby calling for the end of fossil fuels. “Failure or lack of progress or watering down my ambition is not an option. ... Nothing else can help us do a better job in protecting our people and our planet.”

There some were signs negotiators were moving forward Sunday: A new draft agreement on global adaptation goals — which will determine how poor countries will brace themselves for climate change-fueled weather extremes like drought, heat and storms — was released.

The new draft “presents the skeleton of what could be a reasonable framework” on how to adapt to climate change, said Ana Mulio Alvarez of climate think tank E3G, but to be effective, adapting to climate change “requires developed countries to provide support to developing countries” to actually enact plans, which wasn’t in the draft.

Thibyan Ibrahim from the Small Islands Developing States negotiating bloc called the progress on adaptation “a bit disappointing.”

A draft text on the Global Stocktake — the part of the negotiations that assesses where the world is at with curbing warming and how countries can stick to climate goals — were still stuffed with several options over how to phase-out planet-warming fossil fuels.

Shantal Munro-Knight, a climate negotiator for Barbados, said motivation to get a strong deal among countries was high.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go away from the COP without a really ambitious program, and that’s where I think everybody is. You didn’t hear negative pushback too much because we are all in that moment,” Munro-Knight said.

Sticking points are along familiar lines for negotiators, with some countries wanting to see strong language on phasing out the use of fossil fuel while others are hesitant to have forceful language on the issue because they’re continue to develop their oil, gas or coal industries.

“It’s very clear that there is a group of countries here that don’t want to phase out fossil fuels,” said German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan. Small island states, Latin American countries and European countries are pushing for a phase-out, but other nations are “still far apart.”

“It’s going to be very difficult,” Morgan said. “I’m a bit worried.”

Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists told journalists Sunday that “the big laggards, the ones being obstinate, is definitely Saudi Arabia and the OPEC countries,” the powerful oil cartel.

But Brandon Wu of ActionAid USA also criticized America’s plans to expand oil and gas production.

“We should not ignore the fact that the United States has the single largest oil and gas expansion plans of any country in the world by far. It’s not even close,” Wu said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey from Massachusetts, acknowledged the Ukraine war boosted domestic natural gas production because “the LNG industry in the United States saw an opportunity to dramatically expand its footprint.”

He added: “We cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. We cannot tell the rest of the world you should move toward a renewable energy future if we ourselves are spreading this LNG poison around the world.”

Meanwhile, an analysis by the Paris-based International Energy Agency on Sunday found that the several pledges made at COP28 to move to clean energy — over a hundred countries promised to triple renewables and double energy efficiency and several oil and gas companies pledged to slash their methane emissions — were nowhere near what’s needed to cap warming to to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times.

If countries and companies kept their promises, it would result in around four gigatons fewer of carbon pollution globally by 2030, the report said. But that’s only about 30% of the “emissions gap” — the difference between how much the world is currently emitting and how much it can emit if the world is to meet its climate goals.

And that’s only if countries and companies actually stick to their promises.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Bangladesh’s special envoy for climate change, expressed doubt that the pledges made would be met.

“Countries make pledges, they are not delivered upon,” he said. “We talk about emissions gap, adaptation gap, but the most important gap is the gap in solidarity and trust.”

Lisa Fischer, program lead at E3G, said the oil and gas initiatives already announced “are just tinkering around the edges” of the climate problem.

Fischer and others worried that while countries seem to be warming up to language for a phase-out of fossil fuels, there is likely to be loophole language — the world “unabated” before fossil fuels — that leaves options for burning of oil and gas but somehow capturing the pollution, something that is tricky and expensive. Key will be how “unabated” will be defined, she said.

Some observers on Sunday were cautiously optimistic about the progress so far.

“We are close to making history here,” said Kaisa Kosonen, Policy Coordinator at Greenpeace International. “Never before have I seen this level of pressure, with people saying let’s just do it. They are finally addressing the root cause of climate change.”

Climate negotiators now know where they’re going next year: Baku, Azerbaijan. After more than a year of squabbling about the site of 2024 United Nations climate conference and different Eastern European nations vetoing options, the region agreed upon Baku as part of a peace deal between warring Armenia and Azerbaijan. The necessary paperwork was submitted late Saturday for a mid-November meeting.

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