The climate emergency needs better than this. It has taken almost 30 years of climate talks for the world to call on nations to transition “away from fossil fuels” in a “just, orderly and equitable manner”. Cop28’s final text was stating the obvious but it needed saying, and not a moment too soon. Ahead of the Dubai summit, the UN said that under current policies, global temperatures were on track to rise 2.9C above pre-industrial levels – nearly double the goal cited in the climate summit final declaration.
The measures agreed – to triple renewable capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency – could limit warming to the 1.5C threshold. But this relies on an equitable climate financing deal for developing countries. On this key issue, the Cop28 outcome had little to say. A report for the UN has stated that developing countries – excluding China – would need $2.4tn a year. This is a lot of money, but then what is the price of saving the planet? The US is the richest nation on Earth. It should take the lead as the globe’s largest oil and gas producer. Instead it will expand fossil fuel extraction – reckless and inexcusable behaviour given Washington’s historical responsibility.
However, the economics and politics of the G7 and EU in the last decade have militated against the world coming together to solve the existential crisis. Cop28 could be a turning point. But that would need the rich world to reflect seriously in the year ahead on the state of its democratic discourse. Concerns about the erosion of public services are leading voters who rely on these services in western democracies to question the extent to which their governments care about people like them. This is fertile ground for those whipping up resistance to money being spent abroad – even if it is to save domestic voters’ lives and livelihoods.
This insularity is magnified when the costs of climate crisis policies fall on household budgets. Rich world governments have the fiscal firepower to borrow to invest in greening the economy. But that has been seen as ideologically beyond the pale. The result is that many progressive parties have suffered. In the European parliament, the backlash over the costs of environmental policies may see the Greens lose a quarter of their seats in elections later this year, and benefit far-right nationalists more likely to favour fossil fuels, fewer environmental regulations and less international climate cooperation. Looming over this year’s climate talks was the spectre of Donald Trump regaining the US presidency.
The developing world won’t hang around for the wealthy to get their act together. African negotiators held out for – and got – a better deal in Dubai. After years of foregrounding private investment, public finance was emphasised in the Cop outcome. It is time to hold rich nations to the words of the 1992 Rio declaration that green tech must be “in the public domain” and made accessible to developing countries “at affordable prices”. However, the overhaul in trade, finance and investment institutional mechanisms that would genuinely benefit developing nations remains a distant prospect.
While the UN process continues, the world’s fate rests on a wing and a prayer. Decarbonisation inevitably requires replacing the stock of dirty machines, such as oilwells, with green ones, such as wind turbines. The UN Conference on Trade and Development estimates that 17 frontier technologies – from artificial intelligence to green hydrogen to biofuels – could create a market of more than $9.5tn by 2030. But without rewriting the current rules of the game, a few countries, notably the US, China and those in western Europe, will continue to seize most of the value. Whether innovation can drive down the cost of green technologies is important. But just as vital would be to rebalance power towards the rest of the developing world.
