COP28: Of Pledges And Compromises

As expected, the Conference of Parties in Dubai kicked the real hard decisions down the road.

- P. Anima

After skirting the issue in the Paris Agreement, as well as the subsequent Glasgow and Sharm-el-Sheikh summits, the Conference of Parties in Dubai (COP28) finally belled the cat. In a first, the conference’s final document acknowledges that the chief source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is fossil fuels, and "calls upon" Parties to "transition" away from them in their energy systems. Fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—supply over 80% of the world’s energy, and account for over 75% of global GHGs today.

For a group used to tiptoeing towards any objective, the declaration seemed like a leap. In reality, however, it was a compromise—under pressure from oil and gas producing countries, the document did not call for a phaseout of fossil fuels, despite half of the Parties supporting such a move.

The COP, which is hosted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the only multilateral exercise on this scale aimed at addressing climate change. The first COP was held in Berlin in 1995. The conference is held every year, unless agreed otherwise, and sees close to 200 Parties with wide-ranging ambitions attempt to navigate climate crises through a consensus. Typically, COPs tend to be about small, slow steps. COP28, hosted in fossil fuel nerve-centre Dubai and led by the CEO of the UAE’s state-owned oil company, was no different in the final analysis. But it could still spark some policy shifts.