🌎 COP28 Deal: Fossil fuels to stay — for now

This week’s Climate Crunch newsletter will shed light on the landmark fossil fuel deal coming out of COP28.

The COP28 climate deal is officially called the stocktake — click here to read the full 21-page document. As part of the deal, nearly 200 countries agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.”

What exactly does that mean? Proponents of the deal say that COP28 secured a historic win by mentioning a possible transition away from fossil fuel usage — which plays a key role in human-produced carbon emissions and global warming — for the first time in a global climate deal.

Critics argue that the deal failed to win a long-sought-after “phase-out” of fossil fuels and instead gave oil & gas companies “numerous escape routes.”

Today’s newsletter will introduce you to the four most important aspects of the COP28 deal: the fossil fuel transition, climate finance, climate resilience funds, and net-zero & temperature increase goals.

1️⃣ Fossil Fuels: Here to stay, but not for long?

Before the final deal was released, people were concerned about a leaked version of the stocktake that did not call for decisive action on transitioning away from fossil fuel usage.

Oil-producing countries like the UAE, which hosted the summit, have long opposed the inclusion of such language in climate agreements.

The final document did not mention oil in any of its 21 pages or 11,600+ words, but it did mention fossil fuels for the first time.

Some scientists condemned the wishy-washy nature of the fossil fuel reference, arguing that it creates a space for fossil fuels to be used as “transitional fuels” for an indefinite period of time.

A delegate from Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean, an area that is particularly susceptible to damage from rising ocean levels and higher temperatures, said:

2️⃣ Climate Finance

Climate finance was one of the most important issues of the day at the COP28 summit, with UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell calling it the “great enabler of climate action.”

Climate finance has been defined as “the financial resources used to fund actions that mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change,” and a number of funds have been established to distribute money to various projects and governments worldwide.

The Green Climate Fund has now received total commitments of $12.8B from 31 countries, with other contributions expected in the future. The Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund also received new donations.

Participating countries also agreed to set a goal of raising $100B per year for climate finance ahead of plans to announce national climate mitigation & adaptation plans by 2025.

UN adviser Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio said that the new deal is better than "prior versions" but that it “falls short in mobilizing the financing needed to meet those targets.”

 3️⃣ Net Zero & Temperature Goals

All participating countries agreed to take measures to cap global temperature increases at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The stocktake also set a goal of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Net zero refers to the goal of reducing emissions and using technology to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

4️⃣ Loss-and-Damage Climate Fund

Separate from the question of climate finance is the idea of a loss-and-damage climate fund.

Developing economies in Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean have long advocated for an international "loss-and-damage fund" that would provide them with funds if (or when) they suffer catastrophic damage from climate change.

Presumably, the wealthy developed economies and Western multinationals that contributed the most to carbon emissions and rising temperatures would foot most of the bill.

Unsurprisingly, this idea has been controversial, and firm financial commitments from wealthy nations have been hard to come by.

At the COP27 summit, countries agreed to form a loss-and-damage fund. Developing island nations were disappointed by the result of the COP28 summit, which did not include pledge commitments for the loss-and-damage fund.

It remains to be seen whether the loss-and-damage fund materializes and if it’s able to collect enough money to make a difference for the small island nations that will be most harmed by rising temperatures and ocean levels.

Thanks for reading! Please reply with any thoughts or feedback you’d like to share about the newsletter.

-the Crunch Bunch 🌳