Summary
That’s it from us for today, as the second week of Cop ramps up and we begin to see the tussles over the language – will we phase out fossil fuels, what does abatement look like, and what does that all mean for the Paris agreement?
We will be blogging and reporting all weekend, and indeed until the negotiations end, whenever that may be, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s what happened today.
The former French prime minister and Cop21 president, Laurent Fabius, said we are off track for 1.5 degrees of warming, as agreed in the Paris agreement, and that he thinks we will hit between 2.8 and 3 if we don’t act now.
Nina Lakhani revealed Cop28 organisers granted attendance to at least 475 lobbyists working on carbon capture and storage, unproven technologies that climate scientists say will not curtail global heating.
Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, Espen Barth Eide, was confronted by activists protesting against the new Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea. The oil and gas licence has been signed off by the UK government – which has been highly controversial – but the facility will be operated by Norway’s Equinor. They asked him if he would stop Rosebank because of the vast emissions it would cause. He said it was not up to him, adding: “These decisions are up to the UK government.”
Sultan Al Jaber, Cop28 president, seemed chipper about the progress made at the summit. He told journalists “We can all agree Cop28 has been different, and I am sure we will agree that Cop28 has already made history.”
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Laurent Fabius: 'We are off track for 1.5C'
The former French prime minister and Cop21 president has had a chat with our environment reporter after his press conference.
When she asked him if he thought we were on track to meet the 1.5C target agreed in Paris, he was pessimistic. “Are we so far away from 1.5C? The figures aren’t that good. And all the scientific data shows that we’re off track. Remember that before Paris? The tendency was four degrees. Sure. Now, it’s something between 2.8 and three and we have to be 1.5 which means to act urgently, not in 20 years. Right now.”
She then asked him if the Paris agreement would fail if we do not get a phase-out of fossil fuels.
He said: “I hope that we will find something which will be meaningful, because I compare it with the elephant, you can say the elephant is not here – it is here.” He seems to be saying it is the elephant in the room when it comes to meeting the 1.5C target.
Fabius added: “And therefore, we have to deal with that, obviously in a realistic manner, but from my different talks, and particularly with the president of this Cop … my own belief is that we have to be very clear that … both companies, governments and all the people that have to know that they have progressively to replace the fossil fuel with renewables, not only renewables, other obviously, techniques, but we have to insist on that. And it will be part and parcel of the success of the whole of this Cop.”
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