EXPERT REACTION: Draft COP28 agreement text criticised for fossil fuel omission

How does Gas relate to the COP28?

The COP 28 Statement is an amazing breakthrough. For the first time in history we have an emphasis on the need to ‘reduce production of fossil fuels’, not just reduce consumption due to growth in renewables. If a company wants to add an incremental increase in gas then it needs to be seen as being subject to a commerciality risk based on the need to keep within these global limits.

The reality is that the COP 28 process has revealed that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will never be more than a minor part of the solution that could enable growth in fossil fuels. It's not possible to collect up CO2 from all the billions of consumers and find ways to put it underground. These processes are nowhere to be found in the world to have moved any closer to commerciality and hence after 20 years the COP28 has said that CCS cannot be used anymore as the basis of achieving growth in oil and gas.  

Fossil fuel growth is now a risk that has to be addressed by nations and places like WA and Qld. The environmental assessment process in all states deals in risk assessments so they now have a guideline from this COP 28 Statement.  From here on every assessment must ask the company involved to address the global decline in gas (and oil/coal) production. Gas companies are planning to grow for the next 50 years. The big question for WA is whether gas companies here are likely to collapse the way coal companies are and require massive government support in their final days. Our government agencies need to assist this process and help make us a Renewable Energy Superpower, not a place trying to be the last bastion of LNG production before it collapses.

The failure of the draft text to include a commitment to phasing out carbon-based fuels reflects the inherent limitations of international processes based on consensus.

Rather than seek a compromise wording, it may be better to issue a statement incorporating a strong commitment, and accept that it will not be supported by some countries?

Once again it is clear that there is widespread ignorance of the danger of a changing climate for humans and the millions of species with which we share the planet and the scientific evidence for the need for a very rapid abandonment of fossil-fuel energy. The one thing that global investment in climate change science has told us in the last decade is that the time for action to avoid catastrophic outcomes, is upon us, now! Focus on 2050 is clearly inconsistent with our understanding of the risks.

A feature of our society is the belief that mother nature is indeed unlimited in the degree to which human interference can be accommodated. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Are we seeing a sad and perhaps catastrophic stage in the development of human society? We have been there before with less challenging but nonetheless significant impacts of our inventiveness on the environment, but this time we seem hell-bent in the name of the economy, trade, power, self-interest, short-termism, or whatever, to avoid the required action.

The Conference of the Parties (CoP) appears to have been infiltrated (organised and deliberate) by those who wish to downplay these risks and play dangerous games with what might have been an opportunity for the global community to work together on shared and meaningful actions. How sad.

To ensure we avoid catastrophic warming of greater than 1.5 degrees, the world requires a strong, unified, global commitment to completely phase out use of fossil fuels by 2050. Failure to commit to such action is bitterly disappointing and leaves the door ajar for continued extraction and burning of carbon-intensive fuels and intensification of the effects of climate change that are already writ large across the globe.

Reliance on carbon-capture and storage technology will not be enough to prevent accelerated warming in the presence of ongoing fossil fuel use. To prevent catastrophic warming (beyond that already ‘locked in’), we must completely phase out fossil fuel use, transition to renewable sources of energy, and ensure our global carbon sinks of intact forests, woodlands, peatlands and wetlands are maintained.

The fossil fuel lobby has mobilised its enormous influence at COP28. Its influence is reflected in the extraordinarily weak draft text circulated by the Chair of the conference.

By avoiding any commitment to a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, the text repudiates the now-deafening message of climate science and consigns low-lying island states to inundation by rising seas.

If anything like the current text is adopted, it will show the COP process to be broken beyond repair. Nations that understand the urgency of a rapid fossil fuel phase-out would be better off blowing up the process by refusing to endorse a text like this one.

Failing to phase out fossil fuels will result in planetary warming beyond 1.5 degrees, a target which requires the most urgent of attention by all nations globally. This is the only safe limit for the world’s frozen regions, including the glaciers and ice sheets. Choosing otherwise is self-harm as climate extremes hit populations and ecosystems. 

For every fraction of a degree of future warming, we increase the likelihood of committing the planet to large-scale deglaciation of Greenland, West Antarctica and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet with its 52 m of potential sea level. With this ice melt comes accelerated sea-level rise and disruption of global-scale ocean circulation and climate patterns.  

The Earth’s natural system is already ringing its alarm bells and the current COP28 text suggests the megaphone of the fossil fuel industry is drowning them out. The warming to date has resulted in hundreds of billions of tons of land ice now being melted each year, and the wholesale retreat of mountain glaciers. 2 billion people globally rely on these glaciers for drinking water and so the only just and equitable thing to do is to get the planet off fossil fuels and onto renewables as soon as possible.

The failure of the COP28 draft agreement to explicitly incorporate a phasing out of fossil fuels is a decision to ignore the science. This will have catastrophic implications for climate-vulnerable communities and species.

The AR6 Synthesis report 2023 stated that projected cumulative future CO2 emissions over the lifetime of existing fossil fuel infrastructure, without additional abatement, currently exceed the total cumulative net CO2 emissions for a warming of 1.5 degrees.

In order to limit warming to 2°C or lower approximately 80% of coal, 50% of gas, and 30% of oil reserves cannot be burned. If we don’t phase out fossil fuels and attempt to stay at 2°C or lower we are failing to prioritise the protection of these vulnerable people and species.

Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Human mortality from floods, droughts and storms is 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions. 

How can COP28 claim to be supporting (i) fast-tracking a just, orderly, and equitable energy transition; (ii) fixing climate finance; (iii) focusing on people, lives and livelihoods; and (iv) underpinning everything with full inclusivity if it is not phasing out fossil fuels?

This failure only perpetuates unsustainable ocean and land use, social and economic marginalisation, and historical patterns of structural inequity.

It is very depressing, but sadly not surprising, to find the COP has again failed to put the world on a path to avoid dangerous climate change. The only previous COPs that saw significant progress had strong leadership. With the presidency of this meeting fatally compromised by involvement in production of oil and gas, it was unlikely to see positive outcomes.

The only pleasing outcome is that Australia’s government, which has historically worked desperately to prevent progress, was in Dubai a voice of reason, recognising that we need to phase out fossil fuels to slow climate change. We now need the government to build on its good policies to reduce domestic emissions by legislating to prevent new export coal and gas projects.

Every extra molecule of carbon dioxide that we release into the atmosphere will warm our planet for centuries to come. The scientific evidence is clear – in order to stabilise the climate, we must stop burning fossil fuels.

This year, Antarctic sea ice has been the lowest on record by an unfathomably wide margin. Yet, if warming continues at the current rate, it will be just an average year in a few decades. If we don’t alter course, then the amazing creatures that live on and around Antarctica will not have time to adapt to the changes. Do we really want to be the generation that doomed Emperor Penguins to the history books? The choice is ours, and the time to act is now.

Our chances of staying below 1.5°C of warming are dwindling, but rapid and ambitious action can still make this goal a reality.

2023 has seen record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires, and sea ice loss. The impacts of climate change will continue to get worse until we stop emitting greenhouse gases.

The draft text misses out on the urgency component of the transition. To respond effectively to the climate challenge the text should read that reductions in fossil fuel use should be done in a ‘rapid, just, orderly and equitable manner’.

The rather vague timing of going to net zero ‘’by, before or around 2050’ is not consistent with the science. To keep temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial we need to go to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by around 2038. And that assumes that we start the emission-reduction trajectory now – which is challenging given that each year we continue to break previous records of carbon dioxide emissions.

The science and analysis of groups like the IPCC and the IEA is clear – we have to move away from fossil fuels quickly and comprehensively. And in doing so we will save on the trillions of dollars of fossil-fuel subsidies globally and generate better overall economic outcomes as well as protecting lives, livelihoods, our environment and whole countries like those of some of our Pacific neighbours.