Summary
That’s it for the Cop28 live blog for today, and tomorrow we are having a break from blogging as there’s a rest day for negotiations. See you Friday – but of course keep checking the Guardian website in the meantime as we still have lots of great stories coming. Here’s a roundup of what happened today.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, arrived in the UAE, to the alarm of the Ukrainian delegation.
Countries negotiating at Cop28 must not fall into the trap of point-scoring and “lowest common denominator politics”, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said.
Leading climate scientists insisted “the link between climate science and fossil fuel phase-out is unequivocal”, in response to Sultan Al Jaber’s claim there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of coal, oil and gas is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C.
The UK delegation was accused of avoiding press scrutiny after holding no press conferences in a highly unusual move.
Europe’s climate monitor, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), announced that November had become the sixth record-breaking month in a row for average temperatures.
Updated
Ukranians alarmed by Putin's arrival in UAE
Ukraine, much last at last year’s Cop in Egypt, has used this occasion to try to rally support for its cause and to highlight some of the ecological damage caused by Russia’s invasion. John Kerry, the US climate envoy, toured the Ukraine pavilion to see examples of this damage himself this morning.
The Ukrainians feel a little forgotten, however, amid global attention that has switched to the war in Gaza and they are extremely alarmed by the arrival of Vladimir Putin’s arrival in the United Arab Emirates during Cop28.
Putin arrived in nearby Abu Dhabi earlier today and was enthusiastically greeted by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s foreign minister, and a flypast of jets that trailed the colours of Russia’s flag in smoke behind them.
Ukrainian scientists at Cop28 said there would have to be some sort of protest in the unlikely event Putin made an appearance at the climate summit itself. The Russian president is able to visit the UAE in a stress-free manner because the country does not recognise the international criminal court, which has an arrest warrant out for Putin.
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A word on the mitigation work programme. This is, like many pieces of Cop jargon, confusing and misleading for people in the real world.
The first thing to remember is that in climate Cops and climate parlance, mitigation always always refers to greenhouse gas emissions. It means reducing emissions, or curbing their future growth. They use the term mitigation to describe this because some countries take on pledges to actually reduce their emissions, and some (poorer developing countries) only to stop them going up by as much as they could. Mitigation covers both.
Mitigation in a Cop or climate context never ever means mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, such as building shelters against extreme weather. Anything to do with the impacts of the climate crisis is covered by the term adaptation.
Unfortunately many people get confused by this and use mitigation when they mean adaptation.
So – back to the mitigation work programme. It refers to attempts by countries to reduce or curb the future growth of their emissions. And some people have raised concerns that the negotiations on this important aspect of the Paris agreement is not progressing fast enough.
However, several countries I spoke to do not share these concerns. They point out that the Global Stocktake (GST) is also largely concerned with the future direction of emissions, and ways to reduce them. Some decisions within the mitigation work programme are therefore effectively dependent on what is agreed in the global stocktake, and so are unlikely to be completed before the GST – which is, now that loss and damage is settled, the key focus of these talks.
Adaptation, meanwhile, has its own issues. Discussions on a global goal on adaptation are also under way, and developing countries want at least a doubling of the finance that is devoted to adaptation. They point out that poor countries already spend a large slice of their budgets – that could be better spent on health or education – having to fix the problems caused by extreme weather, and this is unsustainable and setting their development back by years. Those discussions are a vital concern to the developing world, which is hoping for faster progress on this strand in the coming days.
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Licypriya Kangujam, a 12-year-old Indian climate justice activist and special envoy of Timor-Leste here at Cop28, is unimpressed at the UAE Cop president’s oil and gas links.
I am pretty disappointed that Cop is hosted by a fossil fuel leader. We are here representing the voices of millions of vulnerable people and children, but now that it has become a fossil fuel summit now we can do nothing about it. But we will keep raising our voices, because we need a just phase out of all fossil fuels, oil, coal and gas, to renewable and clean energies as soon as possible if we want to save our planet.
What a pleasure to meet this climate justice leader, if only our grownup leaders had half the compassion and clarity of @LicypriyaK pic.twitter.com/km6RKafNmH
— Nina Lakhani (@ninalakhani) December 6, 2023
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I’ve just been sent some figures by the Cop presidency, breaking down all the funding pledges made so far at the summit.
Breakdown of financial pledges and contributions so far:
Loss and damage: $726m
Green climate fund: $3.5bn (increasing second replenishment to $12.8bn)
Adaptation fund: $133.6m
Least developed countries fund: $129.3m
Special climate change fund (SCCF): $31m
Renewable energy: $5bn
Cooling: $25.5m
Clean cooking: $30m
Technology: $568m
Methane: $1.2bn
Climate finance: $30bn from UAE, $200m in special drawing rights, and $32bn from multilateral development banks (MDBs)
Food: $3.1bn
Nature: $2.6bn
Health: $2.7bn
Water: $150m
Gender: $2.8m
Relief, recovery and peace: $1.2bn
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A festive update from environment editor Fiona Harvey:
Santa Claus has turned up at #Cop28 to persuade delegates they need to move faster on cutting emissions pic.twitter.com/xCiQQXuLOe
— Fiona Harvey (@fionaharvey) December 6, 2023
“Stop ignoring the cow in the room!” protesters have shouted as they gathered at the entrance of the Blue Zone to call for the negotiation of a global plant-based treaty as a companion to the Paris agreement and to address breaches to five planetary boundaries.
Hoshimi Sakai from Plant Based Treaty said: “This is the first Cop where food systems have been addressed. It has to be a fair and just plant-based food system that not only takes care of our own health but the planet’s health. This is urgent, everyone must sign the plant-based treaty and CopP29 must be 100% vegan.”
Climate solutions begin on our plate.
— ParentsForFuture Global (@parents4futureG) December 6, 2023
Eat Plants • Plant Trees 🌱
Sign the Plant Based Treaty!https://t.co/0WKtqYgKGE
Diet change not climate change!
There is no #ClimateJustice without #AnimalJustice
Powerful action today by @Plant_Treaty #PlantBasedTreaty at #COP28 pic.twitter.com/E5Nw3LWp2u
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It is now “crunch time” in these climate talks, according to John Kerry, who has urged other countries to raise their ambition in Dubai. “Come on, it’s time to get serious,” the US climate envoy said in a press conference, after reeling off a litany of recent climate disasters. “It’s time for adults to behave like adults and get the job done.”
Kerry said the US has had a “pretty damn good week” at Cop28 so far, highlighting its actions to curb methane pollution, its pledge to build no new coal plants and to triple renewable energy. But he conceded the second week will be trickier, admitting to some differences with China, such as over its ongoing coal consumption.
The general tone from Kerry about the Dubai gathering was upbeat, however. “I feel a different energy here, I feel a different sense of mission and urgency,” he said.
Not even another Donald Trump presidency would derail the transition to green energy, he said. Of course, even without Trump in charge the US is setting records in oil and gas production this year, something Kerry didn’t mention.
“People will measure who steps up and who doesn’t,” Kerry said of the negotiations. “We will get to a global low-carbon, no carbon economy, we will get there. The only question is will we get there in time to avoid the worst consequences of this crisis as we were warned by the 2018 IPCC report.”
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Vladimir Putin has arrived in the United Arab Emirates and they have certainly received him in style.
The Russian president aims to discuss Gaza and Ukraine, as well as oil production, with the UAE president. This is a rare international visit for Putin, who rarely leaves Russia after the international criminal court (ICC) issued him an arrest warrant. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia recognise this ruling.
UAE pulling out all stops to receive Putin with pomp in Abu Dhabi. pic.twitter.com/ut0NOBbEUo
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) December 6, 2023
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Greenpeace Nordic just held a press conference at Cop28 along with climate legal advocates to discuss their court case against the state of Norway.
The organisations argued that the recent approvals of three oilfields violate the country’s constitution and international human rights commitments because of a ruling by Norway’s supreme court that the Norwegian state must assess the global climate effects of new oil- and gasfields before their approval.
Klimentina Radkova, a climate and energy adviser and legal campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, said: “It is quite frustrating to sit in a courtroom and listen to the Norwegian state justify new oil and gas expansion once again, while reiterating how ‘dark’ the presented climate science is in the next breath. It’s high time to put actions behind words. The decision is now in the judge’s hands and we are very optimistic about the results.”
The Norwegian government in turn did not contest the effects of the climate crisis but argued that Norwegian oil and gas would have a positive net effect on the climate. This is a position many oil-producing governments have made including UK ministers who wrongly claim north sea oil and gas is greener than other fossil fuels on the market.
Nikki Reisch, the climate and energy programme director at the US-based Center for International Environmental Law (Cile), said: “This case in Norway is part of a rising tide of litigation around the world challenging decisions to expand fossil fuels amidst mounting climate chaos. Oil and gas producers and financiers should take heed: wherever they seek to open up new fields, legal challenges are sure to follow. Whether countries agree to a full, fast, fair and funded phaseout of all fossil fuels at Cop28 or not, they will continue to face what science requires and justice demands in court.”
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I want to submit our youngest contender so far for the fashion blog, 13-year-old fashion guru and future climate leader Lova Renée from Madagascar. So inspiring and she was so unbelievably excited to meet her climate hero Vanessa Nakate at the Unicef event this morning.
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We have a new exclusive story which may be yet another reason Sunak beat a swift exit from Cop and UK ministers have been avoiding journalists. Bad climate news for the UK government just keeps coming out.
Ministers have been accused of “misleading the public” after documents obtained by Ends Report and the Guardian revealed they ignored their officials’ advice when scrapping key air quality regulations.
On 31 December, two key air quality regulations will drop off the statute book under the Retained EU Law (REUL) Act.
The rules being revoked are regulations 9 and 10 of the National Emission Ceiling (NEC) regulations, which set legally binding emission reduction commitments for five key air pollutants.
Regulation 9 requires the secretary of state to prepare a national air pollution control programme (NAPCP) to limit pollutants in accordance with national emission reduction commitments. Regulation 10 requires that before preparing or significantly revising the NAPCP, the secretary of state must consult the public.
In July 2023, the then environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, reassured the OEP that in revoking the regulations “there [will be] no reduction in the level of environmental protection”, and emphasised that the government “uses expert advice when making provisions that relate to the environment”.
However, it can be revealed that ministers knew this was not the case. Read below to find out more.
Meanwhile, my colleague Patrick Greenfield is enjoying one of the performances on show at the conference.
A sunset performance in the #Cop28 green zone pic.twitter.com/GyKueMHvdE
— Patrick Greenfield (@pgreenfielduk) December 6, 2023
Urban design in the spotlight
I just got a press release from the Cop28 leadership about a “ministerial meeting on urbanisation and climate change”, where “government ministers, regional leaders, financial institutions and non-government stakeholders were urged to support the ‘Joint Outcome Statement on Urbanization and Climate Change’.”
It focuses on how cities should be designed in a climate-friendly way, and which shields residents from the worsening impacts of climate breakdown – such as droughts, heatwaves and floods.
The statement, supported by 40 housing and development ministers, sets out a 10-point plan to “boost the inclusion of cities in the decision-making process on climate change, drive multilevel climate action and accelerate the deployment of urban climate finance so that cities are prepared and supported to respond to the climate crisis”.
The Cop28 presidency said that as many as 90% of cities are threatened by rising sea levels and storms, and that they tend to be hotter than rural areas – their residents face temperatures on average 10C higher .
“Cop28 is a paradigm shift to action. We are empowering and supporting cities on the frontlines of climate change to seize the initiative,” said Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the Cop28 president.
“We have brought over 450 mayors and governors to Cop28 and their hyperlocal knowledge is crucial in informing our global solutions. When we talk about inclusivity this is what we mean, we need all voices at the table. I thank and commend those involved for their leadership,” added Jaber. “Each city has individual needs and solutions but fundamentally this is a global problem, which this statement shows. I thank and commend those involved for their leadership.”
Dubai is one such city which is facing skyrocketing temperatures. While its wealthier inhabitants can enjoy cool air conditioning and even an indoor ski slope to shield from the dizzying heat, its poorer workers are not so lucky.
A recent investigation found migrant workers in Dubai were working in dangerously hot temperatures to get conference facilities ready for world leaders at Cop.
“Of course, I get headaches and feel dizzy. Everyone in this heat does. This weather isn’t for humans, I think,” one worker said.
Another added: “Last week, I thought I would die every second we were outside … but we have to get paid.”
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New polling could give an answer to Fiona Harvey’s question about why the UK government is avoiding press scrutiny at Cop (08.24).
The polling conducted by WeThink found 47% of people saying the UK government was doing poorly [on climate] and only 17% saying it was doing well; 28% said neither and 8% didn’t know.
Rishi Sunak’s much-criticised performance at Cop is unlikely to have improved the government’s standing on this issue.
Updated
Vladimir Putin, as my colleague Damien pointed out earlier today, is due to visit Cop28.
He’s not likely to get a warm reception. Some Polish activists have already got together to protest against his attendance. Dominika Lasota, a climate activis, said: “Fuck you. Your power is coming to an end. Fossil fuel dictators out.”
🚨Vladimir Putin is apparently secretly visiting UAE this week. We have a welcome message to him from #COP28 in Dubai:
— Dominika Lasota (@DominikaLasota1) December 6, 2023
Fuck you. Your power is coming to an end. Fossil fuel dictators out 🇷🇺!
PS Hague is the other way round 🤡 pic.twitter.com/3av1QmHcF3
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Lots of reports are coming out to focus minds during Cop28, and it is clear from today’s findings from the UK’s National Audit Office that we are very unprepared for the costs of climate breakdown.
The report, out today, found the country is not adequately prepared for climate disasters including severe droughts and floods.
Climate campaigners said the UK government was “like a boiling frog” and “oblivious” to extreme weather.
Four extreme weather events including droughts, surface water flooding, storms and high temperatures (including heatwaves) were assessed by the independent public spending watchdog to determine how prepared the country is.
Storms, floods and heatwaves can cause deaths, while droughts can have devastating effects on agriculture and there are concerns that supplies of running water in certain areas of the country could run out for periods in the future.
Read more below.
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Wopke Hoekstra, the EU climate commissioner and former oil man, who replaced the Cop titan Frans Timmermans just weeks before Cop28, came out strongly on the attack against his former sector in this first press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
He was uncompromising on his demand for a full phase-out of fossil fuels with urgency. He was leaving no room for doubt.
“Let me be very explicit,” the former Shell employee told journalists. “We need to phase out all fossil fuels. It is that simple. And not because I say so – because scientists tell us that that is the goal that that we should live up to.”
He did, however, then make one caveat, for hard-to-abate sectors (he didn’t single any out but it usually means steel, cement, chemicals and perhaps aviation).
He continued: “Having said that, we do have acknowledged that where we are now in the era now today. There are some sectors that are very hard to abate.”
Carbon capture and storage was not the panacea, he added. “It does not mean that companies or countries can get away with CCS-ing themselves out of the problem. There is no magic solution. There is no alternative for phasing out fossil fuels. As fast as we can and as broadly as we get.”
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Hello! Helena Horton here, I’m an environment reporter for the Guardian and will be blogging Cop28 for the rest of the day.
I really enjoyed this Q&A from Carbon Brief about all the wording being quibbled over in the draft text. If you aren’t sure why it matters whether we phase down or phase out fossil fuels, or the more complex matter of abated versus unabated, it’s a great refresher.
It’s interesting, to me at least, that there is no real definition for “unabated”, so it could be arguable for a fossil fuel plant to capture a small percentage of its emissions and claim that this counts as “abated” emissions.
Dr Alaa Al Khourdajie, a research fellow at Imperial College London, says these disagreements highlighted the need to be “transparent and crystal clear about what abated fossil fuels means”.
He told Carbon Brief:
“In the absence of such a clear set of criteria, any capture rate – for example, 50-60% – of carbon emissions could be casually considered abated. This cannot be left ambiguous. Looking at the findings of the technical assessment of the first ‘global stocktake’ discussions, the term unabated is used very heavily in the findings.
“But there is a lack of clarity about what counts as unabated and what counts as abated, largely due to the absence of such agreed definitions in the underlying literature at the time of those negotiations.”
The conflict in Gaza has loomed large over this year’s Cop28 climate talks in Dubai. While delegates have discussed plans to tackle climate change, on the sidelines activists have tried to draw attention to the slaughter of people in the territory.
But while many climate justice groups have quickly pivoted to campaign around Gaza, in some countries the issue is far more contested, and prominent figures in climate activism, in particular Greta Thunberg, have been criticised for espousing the Palestinian cause.
A team of reporters from the Guardian’s environment desk (including me) put together this story on the emerging controversy.
When Greta Thunberg posted a photo of herself holding a “stand with Gaza” sign on Instagram in October, the backlash in Israel and Germany came hard and fast.
An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson initially told Politico that “whoever identifies with Greta in any way in the future, in my view, is a terror supporter”, although later retracted his comments. The official X account of Israel said: “Hamas doesn’t use sustainable materials for their rockets” and told Thunberg to speak up for its victims. The Israeli education ministry said it would strike any reference to the Swedish climate activist from its curriculum.
In Germany, politicians and pundits across the political spectrum demanded that the national branch of Fridays for Future, the student protest movement that Thunberg started in 2018, distance itself from her views. The group put out a statement underlining its support for Israel’s right to exist and, in the weeks that followed, explicitly distanced itself from social media posts made by the international group. Germany’s leading news magazine Der Spiegel ran a lengthy article with personal comments on Thunberg’s childhood character and appearance under the headline: “Has Greta Thunberg betrayed the climate movement?”
The violence in Israel and Gaza since 7 October has become an unexpected flashpoint for climate activists in rich countries. As world leaders meet for the Cop28 summit in Dubai, the loose collection of movements, many of which have built their support around inclusivity and global justice, are divided on whether or how to take a stand on the conflict.
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Medical students have staged a protest outside the main meeting rooms at Cop28.
Holding banners reading “protect health, end fossil fuels” and “climate crisis = health crisis”, they mimed giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the Earth.
The protest was organised by members of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations.
Don't fall into the trap of point-scoring, says UN climate chief
Countries negotiating at Cop28 must not fall into the trap of point-scoring and “lowest common denominator politics”, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, has said.
Stiell, who is executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, the structure under the auspices of which the climate summit is held, spoke at a press conference in Dubai as Cop28 reached its midpoint. He said:
All governments must give their negotiators clear marching orders. We need highest ambition, not point scoring or lowest common denominator politics.
We have a starting text on the table … but it’s a grab bag of wishlists and heavy on posturing. The key now is to sort the wheat from the chaff.
There are many options that are on the table right now which speak to the phasing out of fossil fuels. It is for parties to unpick that, but come up with a very clear statement that signals the terminal decline of the fossil fuel era as we know it.
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Leading climate scientists have insisted “the link between climate science and fossil fuel phase-out is unequivocal”, in response to Sultan Al Jaber’s claim there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of coal, oil and gas is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C.
The Guardian on Sunday revealed the comments by the Cop28 president, which have overshadowed the climate talks as delegates negotiated the future of the planet and the fossil fuel economy. They have led to widespread condemnation.
An open letter published by the Club of Rome on Wednesday and signed by about 75 scientists said:
For all intents and purposes, moving towards the phase-out of fossil fuel combustion is necessary to keep the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement within reach.
The letter is an unambiguous statement by some of the world’s leading climate scientists. They say that carbon dioxide removal technologies will also be necessary to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Scenarios consistent with this goal require a complete phase-out of coal by 2050 and rapid phase-down of oil and gas (halved every decade). After 2050 the world needs to rapidly move into net negative emissions, particularly after a number of decades of 1.5C overshoot.
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Good times! The guitarist Nile Rodgers has made an appearance with activists at Cop28.
Rodgers is co-founder of the We Are Family Foundation, which staged a joint #Education4Earth event with Earth Day at Cop28’s Blue Zone.
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Is the UK avoiding press scrutiny at Cop28?
It’s hard to avoid the impression that the UK government is hiding from scrutiny at Cop28. Several ministers have been in attendance, but we have passed the halfway point and not one has held a press conference or any form of press meeting, with UK press or with international media.
Graham Stuart, climate minister; Andrew Mitchell, minister for overseas development; Richard Benyon, a minister with both FCDO and Defra; David Cameron, foreign secretary – journalists tried in vain to get any of them to hold any form of press briefing at which they could be questioned.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, held a small Q&A with only lobby journalists, most of whom have no experience of Cops, during his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance at Cop, when he spent less time here than he did on the plane.
Ministers are clearly taking their avoidant lead from Sunak, and doubtless they will claim their diaries are full with meeting international counterparts.
But don’t let anyone pretend that this kind of hiding away is normal. Every other democracy here with ministers attending is briefing their press extensively, and often international media too, some on a daily or almost daily basis, and likely to grow more frequent.
This is 17th Cop I’ve attended as a journalist and I can state categorically that this failure to engage with the press by the UK government is not only unusual, it is unprecedented.
Even last year, under the same prime minister, with his equal unconcern for climate issues and the UK’s standing at Cops, ministers met the press – Grant Shapps, Graham Stuart, Thérèse Coffey and ministers from Treasury and transport all held extensive press meetings with ample opportunities to ask questions.
This Cop is being held in a country that lacks what we would regard as a free press, and is attended by scores of countries that lack a functioning democracy or where the press is gagged. One of the key themes of this conference is accountability – that’s at the heart of the global stocktake.
As a democracy – arguably one of the world’s oldest – the UK should be leading by example, standing up for the accountability and transparency of governments. Why won’t our ministers do what other democracies regard as basic? What are they afraid of?
This is a government that appears to have nothing to say in public about the climate crisis and the UK’s role in tackling it, and to want to evade scrutiny for the UK’s actions.
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As negotiators wrangle over whether to agree a “phase-out” or a “phase-down” of fossil fuels, Vanessa Nakate, the Ugandan climate activist, this morning made a strident call for the ending of the extraction and burning of coal, oil and gas.
Until new fossil fuel projects are eliminated, and the burning of fossil fuels is ended, promises to help deal with the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis “will sadly mean little”, Nakate said.
Day 7 #COP28
— Vanessa Nakate (@vanessa_vash) December 6, 2023
There is no pathway to 1.5c that doesn’t involve phase out of fossil fuels. pic.twitter.com/Kv0aUIPwnr
She said:
If we want to be real about helping people who are living in vulnerable communities we need to address not just the symptoms of the climate crisis but also the root cause, and that is the burning of fossil fuels.
The first thing we should do to reduce loss and damage is to stop digging up and burning new coal, oil and gas. All of the flashy announcements about promised funding and scaling renewables and tree planting will sadly mean little if countries continue to expand fossil fuel development.
The success of Cop28 will not depend on speeches on big stages. The success of Cop28 will not depend upon piling new fancy promises on top of old broken promises. The success of Cop28 will depend upon whether or not leaders have the courage to call for for a just and equitable phase out of all fossil fuels, without excuses and exceptions.
Then and only then will our leaders have a chance to take care of the people on the front lines.
2023 will be the hottest year on record, says European climate monitor
Pressure is piling on negotiators at Cop28 after Europe’s climate monitor, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), on Wednesday announced that November had become the sixth record-breaking month in a row for average temperatures.
An “extraordinary” November smashed the previous November heat record, pushing 2023’s global average temperature to 1.46C warmer than pre-industrial levels, C3S said, according to AFP.
The announcement confirms that 2023 will be the hottest year on record, taking the title from 2016.
November also contained two days that were 2C warmer than pre-industrial levels. Not one such day had ever before been recorded.
Samantha Burgess, deputy head of C3S, said 2023 has “now had six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons”.
“The extraordinary global November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above pre-industrial (levels), mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history,” she said.
Scientists say data from ice cores, tree rings and other sources suggest this year could be the warmest in more than 100,000 years.
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Vladimir Putin will visit the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, but seems unlikely to visit the Dubai Expo City site of the Cop28 climate talks.
The Russian president, who is subject to an arrest warrant from the international criminal court over his country’s invasion of Ukraine, is expected to meet the Emirati leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi.
He is then expected to travel on to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with the country’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Putin is also scheduled to meet the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, on Thursday for what his aide, Yury Ushakov, has described as “a rather lengthy conversation”, according to Tass, the Russian state-run news agency.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE has signed the ICC founding treaty, meaning they don’t face any obligation to detain Putin. The ICC’s warrant accuses him of the abductions of children from Ukraine.
The Associated Press, the US-based news agency, said Putin’s discussions were likely to focus on oil production.
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Fossil fuel phase-out, politics and ‘pie-in-the sky thinking’
The biggest argument at Cop28 is the competing claims that a “phase-out” of fossil fuels is necessary to keep global heating within 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, or that a “phase-down” is acceptable, a debate amplified by the Guardian’s revelation of Sultan Al Jaber’s recorded comment that there was “no science” behind the former.
As Leo Roberts at E3G told me, the competing claims can result from the “translation of science into politics”.
This post from Ben Caldecott, the director of Oxford University’s Sustainable Finance Group, is insightful and scathing, and takes a swipe at Oxford’s Prof Myles Allen, an eminent climate scientist but the only one I know to have backed Al Jaber in the “no science” furore. Allen said Al Jaber’s comment was “perfectly accurate”.
Caldecott said: “If we can scrub from the atmosphere all the carbon emitted by future fossil fuel consumption, plus all the carbon emitted after we almost certainly overshoot a 1.5C degree carbon budget, then yes, [Sultan Al Jaber] and my very distinguished Oxford colleague Prof Allen are right: no fossil fuel phase-out is needed to achieve the aims of the Paris Agreement.”
“But mere analysts of economic, financial and political systems (like me) tend to think that this is pie-in-the sky thinking and nowhere near possible. Further, it is being used to justify continued avoidable fossil fuel use.
“The fossil fuel lobby often making these arguments have no actual plan to scrub carbon at such scales so quickly. It would be almost impossible to do so and would cost vast sums even if it were possible – much more than decarbonisation and without the co-benefits of cleaner, safer and more productive societies.”
“And yes, we obviously do need to scale safe and permanent carbon disposal (part and parcel of net zero), but that is never going to happen at the scale needed to offset like-for-like currently avoidable fossil fuel emissions. The finite techno-economic capacity we have to develop the means to scrub carbon needs to be focused on hard-to-abate emissions and then bringing us back to safe levels after we (probably) overshoot 1.5C, not sustaining existing fossil fuel interests.”
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s Cop28 newsletter, also addressed the issue:
“Some climate scientists have explained in tortuous detail how his comments could, technically, be right, whilst others have pointed to the IPCC’s clarity around the principal driver of 80% of the problem of climate change: the burning of fossil fuels.
“So unless we have $1tn a year to spare to pay to ramp up carbon capture and storage (CCS) from its 45m tonnes a year capacity now, to 32bn tonnes a year, it appears the obvious focus for Cop (sorry Darren from Exxon) may need to be phase-out of fossil fuels and ramp up of the renewables alternatives.”
The $1tn a year figure comes from new research, also from Oxford: “A high CCS pathway to net zero emissions in 2050 is expected to cost at least $30tn more than a low CCS pathway – roughly $1tn per year.”
As co-author Richard Black puts it: “That is at least $120 per year for every man, woman and child on the planet that we would be spending unnecessarily.”
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As day six begins of talks in Dubai’s Expo City, more sobering scientific news should focus minds there on achieving a result.
A new report warns the Earth is on the verge of crossing five catastrophic climate tipping points as a result of carbon pollutions in the atmosphere, with three more in sight in the 2030s if the world heats more than 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, reports Ajit Niranjan, the Guardian’s European environment correspondent.
“Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,” said Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse.”
The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic.
Unlike other changes to the climate such as hotter heatwaves and heavier rainfall, these systems do not slowly shift in line with greenhouse gas emissions but can instead flip from one state to an entirely different one. When a climatic system tips – sometimes with a sudden shock – it may permanently alter the way the planet works.
Updated
Good morning! This is Damien Gayle, on the sixth day of the 28th Conference of the Parties climate change summit, or Cop28.
The Guardian will be liveblogging the negotiations throughout, as always, and we look forward to your contributions: please email me on damien.gayle@theguardian.com with thoughts and suggestions – or you can reach me on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, at @damiengayle. Helena Horton (helena.horton@theguardian.com) will be taking over later on.
The theme for today is multilevel action, urbanisation and built environment, and transport.
Meanwhile yesterday the main talking points at the conference included:
Widespread outrage at the news that a record number of fossil fuel lobbyists have been given access to Cop28
The news that agriculture and food systems had been left off the latest draft of the negotiating text on the global stocktake
Mary Robinson making her first comment since the row over the Cop28 president’s controversial response to her questions on the need for a fossil fuel phase-out, revealed by the Guardian.
