Jaber, CEO of Emirati oil giant ADNOC, said he would hold "everyone" accountable for keeping within reach the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting the rise in the Earth's average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
QUESTION: COP28 is due to start in Dubai in five days' time. How far are we from reaching a consensus?
ANSWER: I am cautiously optimistic. You can see and feel the great momentum we have -- the transitional committee (responsible for setting up a fund to help vulnerable countries cope) has resulted in a very positive outcome.
I have conducted a very successful visit to the European Union, when they (made) a significant financial commitment to support the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund.
You have seen the announcements made by the United States and China and how they're cooperating in the lead-up to COP28.
You have seen the OECD report in regard to the $100 billion (the amount rich countries have committed to providing each year for climate action in poorer nations).
I was very pleased and encouraged by the signals that came out of the US-China meetings (in November). There is the methane summit agreement. There is a clear understanding between both that that they will work in a collaborative manner to ensure the success (of) COP28.
I want a high ambition outcome at COP28. And I do expect that we will be able to collectively agree on a tangible climate action plan.
We are making very good progress across energy, finance, health, food and nature agendas.
Q: How do the Israel-Hamas war and other international crises affect the COP talks?
A: I am hopeful that COP28 will be the multilateral platform that will deliver good news to the world. The world has had enough of polarisation and divide.
Q: How do you see this COP summit compared to COP21 that led to the Paris Agreement in 2015?
A: We are halfway from Paris to 2030. We have had seven years and we will have another seven years. So this is an inflection point.
This is the most consequential COP since Paris. And it is our responsibility to make sure that we maximise the ambition coming out of COP28.
Q: You consistently say the negotiations are driven by the parties, the nation states, but your predecessor in Paris, Laurent Fabius, says a COP president can have a major impact on unblocking negotiations.
A: I have been very clear from day one that while this is a party-driven process and I will enable all parties to engage and to collaborate... I will hold everyone and every industry responsible and accountable for keeping (the) 1.5C within reach.
I have learned over the past year that I need to give the process its time and I need to help rebuild trust and deliver action by being cooperative and being inclusive.
Q: Will fossil fuels be the most contentious issue?
A: It is actually up to the parties to align on any language related to any of the pillars or the negotiated outcomes. For fossil fuels, I have extended an open invitation to all parties to convene, to discuss, to cooperate, and to come back with recommendations that have common ground and consensus that can be recommended to the presidency.
Q: Many people are alarmed by the massive presence of industry lobbyists at COP28 and their power to influence the negotiations.
A: Everyone needs to be part of this process and everyone needs to be held responsible and... accountable.
And that includes all industries and in particular heavy emitting industries like aviation, transportation, aluminium, cement, steel, as well as oil and gas industry.
Everyone must be consulted. Everyone must be given the opportunity to contribute.
Q: What progress would you like to see on climate finance, a key negotiating issue between North and South?
A: The climate finance challenge is a top priority... We must continue to progress on looking for finance to support the transition (to clean energy).
I'm also hearing positive responses to my inquiries to many countries. There will be some other commitments.
I believe we will see further momentum on Green Climate Fund replenishment and on the global goal on adaptation.
At COP28, we are actually working on parallel financial tracks that will help restore trust as well as develop a new framework for climate finance.
We also need to encourage private-sector funding. We need to help risk-mitigate private capital, to provide the hedging mechanisms to protect the private sector.
Q: Negotiators approved a fragile compromise on how the new Loss and Damage Fund will function in Abu Dhabi on November 4. That compromise has still to be approved at the summit. Do you hope to seal a deal on this at the very beginning of the COP?
A: Is that what I aim to do? Absolutely. But it is a party-driven process and I will do everything to give such good and positive momentum very early on.
Three positive climate developments
Paris (AFP) Nov 24, 2023 -
While humanity's efforts to curb planet-warming emissions are nowhere near enough to avoid heating the world to catastrophic levels, tentative improvements show that progress is possible.
The climate trajectory, while still poor, has improved since countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 and committed to limiting the global temperature rise to "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, preferably a safer 1.5C.
And the uptake of renewable energy is providing a rare glimmer of hope.
- Heating -
When the Paris Agreement was adopted, the global reliance on fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal -- placed the world on a path towards a 3.5C rise in temperature by 2100 compared to the pre-industrial era, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said at the time.
Warming of that scale would prompt catastrophic climate disasters worldwide, including the risk of mass extinctions, the melting of glaciers and permafrost that could eventually unleash metres of sea level rise and unliveable conditions across much of the planet.
Eight years on, country commitments to reduce their carbon footprints have pulled that down slightly, putting the world on a path for a still-disastrous 2.5C to 2.9C by the end of the century, according to the UN's Environment Programme this month.
Every tenth of a degree of warming compounds the negative impacts on the climate, but the modest temperature reduction "reflects progress made in the transition to a lower emissions energy system since 2015", said the IEA.
But it "still falls far short of what is needed", the agency added.
- Peak emissions -
Annual greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change have risen roughly nine percent since COP21, according to UN data.
That increase led to record-breaking concentrations of CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) in the atmosphere in 2022, the World Meteorological Organization said last week.
But the rate of the increase has slowed significantly.
The climate experts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have projected that to meet the Paris goals, emissions need to peak by 2025.
To limit temperature rise to 1.5C emissions need to be slashed almost in half by 2030.
Recent estimates by the Climate Analytics institute find global emissions could peak by 2024 or even as early as this year.
The IEA in its pre-Paris deal assessment predicted that carbon dioxide emissions tied to the energy sector -- responsible for more than 80 percent of CO2 emitted by human activity -- could reach 43 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2030.
But the agency now says that current efforts mean that figure will be 35Gt by 2030.
That difference was "equal to the current combined energy sector emissions of the United States and European Union", it said.
- Rising renewables -
Three technologies -- solar, wind and electric vehicles -- are largely behind the improved global warming estimates since 2015.
"Solar PV is projected to reduce emissions by around three Gt in 2030," the OCED now estimates, "roughly equivalent to the emissions from all the world's cars on the road today."
Wind power is expected to reduce emissions by two gigatonnes in 2030 and electric vehicles (EVs) by around one gigatonne, compared to pre-Paris Agreement scenarios.
Photovoltaics (PVs) and wind power are expected to represent around 15 percent of global electricity production in 2030 - seven times the wind power and three times the PVs that the IEA predicted in 2015.
At the time, fleets of electric vehicles seemed a pipedream. The IEA anticipated that EVs would account for less than two percent of car sales by 2030.
It now estimates that more than a third will be purchases of electric vehicles by the end of the decade.
And the numbers are accelerating. "Clean energy technology adoption surged at an unprecedented pace over the last two years," said the IEA, noting a 50-percent increase in solar PV capacity and a 240-percent rise in EV sales.
The IEA attributes the progress -- unthinkable before the Paris Agreement -- to declining costs and public policy initiatives from China, the United States and Europe among others.
Five-year plans in China have raised ambitions for solar power and driven down global costs.
Off-shore wind projects in Europe "kick-started a global industry" and electric two-wheelers and buses "have seen significant uptake in India and other emerging markets", said the agency.
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
