Tuesday's focus at COP28 was energy and industry, the just transition, and Indigenous Peoples.
While controversy still surrounds remarks made by COP President about fossil fuels, and reports of the host country’s own plans to increase its own oil production, there was also coverage of high-level agreements at this year’s global climate summit:
- The UK, France and a number of other countries and banks - including the World Bank and European Investment Bank (EIB) – have agreed to include more climate-resilient debt clauses in their lending. Climate-resilient debt clauses (CRDCs) allow vulnerable countries to pause debt repayments when climate disaster strikes, affording them ‘breathing space’ to recover. Welcoming the announcement, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley stated “I want to thank you for the extraordinary courage to do the right thing. We can always bring back our debt, but we cannot bring back our society.”
- Bill Gates has praised innovation at this year’s COP when he was among those attending the Climate Innovation Forum. The former CEO of Microsoft attended alongside Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer of Google and other world leaders in the technology sector, who convened to explore cutting-edge solutions to tackle the global climate crisis. Solutions discussed included artificial intelligence (AI), satellite technology, big data, clean energy, industrial decarbonization, low-carbon hydrogen, and more.
- The world’s largest independent carbon crediting standards have announced a collaboration to increase the impact of activities under their standards. The pledge, published by the non-profit organisation IETA, outlines a number of activities which will help amplify the impact of carbon markets. Separately, the US regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is expected to propose the first federal guidelines for voluntary carbon credit derivatives, in a bit to “bring order to a market for the offset of emissions described as the ‘wild west’”. The value of the carbon trading market worldwide could reportedly expand to $100bn by 2030, up from $2bn in 2022.
COP28 in numbers
36.8 billion: the number of metric tons of carbon dioxide that will be emitted this year from burning fossil fuels.
1.1: the percentage increase in those emissions on 2022.
1.4: the percentage increase in those emissions on 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.
6: the percentage increase in those emissions since the year of the Paris Agreement, according to research by the Centre for International Climate Research (Cicero)
0: the number of new power plants that should be built anywhere in the world fired by coal (the world's ‘dirtiest fuel’) according to US climate representative, John Kerry. The US has now committed to closing its existing coal power plants and not building any more of them in the future, and have joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance along with seven other countries, although it had to defends its climate leadership despite record oil and gas production (Financial Times)
60: the percentage by which much oil companies must commit to reducing their Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, according to the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol says
94: the percentage of oil-producing countries to have no pledges on phase out oil exploration, according to a new report from the Net-Zero Tracker.
2,456: the number of fossil fuel representatives at COP28, the largest ever to have attend the climate summit.
Quote of the day
“Absolutely not.” — Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, on whether he would be happy to see a COP28 agreement on a “phase-down” of fossil fuels (Financial Times)
Find more news on the global climate summit our our COP28 page on Chartered Accountants Ireland's sustainability centre.
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