Transcript — COP28: is the Dubai deal enough for the climate?

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘COP28: is the Dubai deal enough for the climate?’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator, the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about the battle against climate change. My guest is the FT’s Simon Mundy, who’s author of a book on climate change called Race for Tomorrow and who covered the marathon international climate talks known as COP28 that have just concluded in Dubai. So is the world winning the race against climate change or falling further and further behind?

Sultan al-Jaber in clip
Hearing no objection, it is so decided. (Applause)

Gideon Rachman
After almost two weeks of argument and negotiation, the COP28 conference finally concluded on December the 12th. An hour or so after the final text was agreed, I spoke to Simon Mundy, who was still at the conference centre in Dubai. A lot of the argument at COP28 was about what to say and do about phasing out fossil fuels. So I began our conversation by asking Simon about what the talks had agreed on that crucial topic.

Simon Mundy
As you say, that was an absolutely central part of this conference. And I think it’s worth just taking a step back and looking at what had happened in the previous 27 COPs, which is quite amazing. Fossil fuels were never really mentioned until COP26, and that was my first COP in Glasgow, COP26. And I turned up there and I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing because no one was talking about using less fossil fuels. There was a talk about phasing down unabated coal power — that went into the final agreement there — and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies but nothing about actually using less fossil fuels overall, which of course has been the major driver of the climate crisis. And that language was not strengthened at COP27.

But there seemed to be a real sense of hope that finally this time, something like that might get over the line. And it was this termed phaseout of fossil fuels that became the central push there. So that precise language did not go into the text, and some people were disappointed by that. But there was language that was actually pretty similar. So the central clause, the important clause in that respect, number 28, and it calls upon countries to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by 2050.

Now, that might not sound groundbreaking to someone who hasn’t been in the weeds of the COP processes, but it’s important to remember that some countries, notably Saudi Arabia, were really pushing back on that. They didn’t want any what they call attack on any specific source of energy. They said, let’s focus on the emissions, not the fuels. And of course, the United Arab Emirates, who are a big oil producer, a top 10 oil producer in their own right. There was a lot of concern about whether they would be interested in allowing such an agreement to be made. So the fact that it went through was in itself, I think it’s fair to call it something of a historic moment, certainly by the standards of these UN climate conferences.

Gideon Rachman
So it’s a breakthrough in language. How confident are you and how confident are the people at the conference about the real-world effects of this change in language? Because even some of the countries that were pushing for this language, such as the United States, are nonetheless major fossil fuel producers and look set to be long into the future.

Simon Mundy
Well, that’s a really, really important point, of course. And this is why there is an enormous amount of scepticism about these COP conferences and what they can achieve. So the United States, as you say, huge amounts of increased fossil fuel production is on the horizon from them. We’ve also seen in the UK, which also backed this phaseout, call a pledge from Rishi Sunak to quote, “max out” the UK’s North Sea oil resources. So a lot of people here and around the world are pretty sceptical about how much impact this sort of language has at a time when it really contrasts in some quite stark ways with other things that we’ve been hearing from national governments.

But it is nonetheless a really important recognition of what has to happen. As I’d said, I’ve found it really quite disturbing at previous COPs, the refusal of so many nations and of the COP text itself to just look square in the face the fact that fossil fuels are first and foremost what is driving this crisis. And finally, that weird taboo, that weird squeamishness about simply saying this term out loud has finally been broken. And I think something here has shifted here in terms of the way that governments are willing to publicly conceptualise what needs to happen in response to the climate crisis.

As we all know, it’s incredibly urgent. This year is clearly going to be the hottest on record. And as Pakistani delegates said in the plenary that I was just at a few minutes ago, a big plenary discussion where this agreement was actually greeted with an extended standing ovation from various delegates. And the Pakistani delegate made the point that this is the hottest year so far. And when he said that to his son, his young son said, yeah, but it’s the coolest year out of all the years to come. Delegate after delegate talked about how this is the future of our children and their children we’re dealing with here. And I think that’s actually weighed quite heavily on all of those involved, including, I suspect, Sultan al-Jaber, the president of COP28, who is, of course, also the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. I don’t think any previous COP president has been the subject of so much scrutiny and suspicion. I think one can say that he has performed better than his worst critics are predicting.

Gideon Rachman
So just give us a little more on the atmosphere there, because one of the things that struck me reading the reports was that the voice of the small Pacific Island nations, the ones that are most threatened immediately by rising seawater, was surprisingly loud. You’d think in a way that they would get drowned out by the big economies, the big oil producers, the big money. But it does seem like they kind of acted as a conscience to the talks.

Simon Mundy
Yeah, that’s right. The Alliance of Small Island States is a very powerful voice in these talks. And the reason is that they really do face an existential threat from climate change. We talk about humanity facing an existential threat, and look, I don’t think humanity will go extinct as a result of the climate crisis, although the threat to our way of life is very severe. But some of these countries actually will cease to exist. The Marshall Islands, the Maldives, Kiribati, I mean, they really are under the levels of sea level rise that are projected. We’re talking about countries that have an average altitude or elevation of about 1m above sea level and maximum elevation in some cases of about two metres above sea level. So they really will cease to exist in their current form unless very, very drastic action is taken.

I should mention that in the plenary after that standing ovation, a delegate from Samoa, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, actually voiced displeasure with the outcome and said that she and other delegates from those countries had not been in the room at the outset of the plenary when the agreement was passed. Now, this is something that has happened before from some other countries, and sometimes it’s interpreted as a deliberate way to avoid giving your approval to an agreement that you don’t like without having to face the consequences of blocking it. So I don’t know if that might be the case, but definitely, the small island states are very, very conscious of the fact that without a really radical change in direction, their countries will cease to exist in their current form and that gives their voice an incredible potency that no one can ignore. And I should note that delegate from Samoa also got a standing ovation for her words.

Gideon Rachman
Do you expect that now that there’s a global agreement that fossil fuels are going to be phased out, that we’ll see business responding and much more of a push into renewables? Or do you think that at the same time, the big oil companies, the big energy companies will be kind of hedging their bets and keeping on with the fossil fuels while maybe making a bit more of an effort on renewables? How do you think it’ll play out, the effects of COP28 on actual energy policy?

Simon Mundy
I think it’ll be very, very different depending on which oil company we’re talking about. Darren Woods, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, was here for his first conference of the party’s first COP and did an interview with my colleague Aime Williams at the FT in which he said, look, these conferences put way too much emphasis on using less fossil fuels and way too much emphasis on expanding renewables, I paraphrase. And this is not the words of a man who is primed to move away from fossil fuels.

But if we look at the other sorts of companies in the energy ecosystem, there is now a very, very clear message that has come from this gathering of pretty much every country in the world saying that we need to use less fossil fuels. There has to be a clear transitioning away from fossil fuels and energy systems. So that’s clearly not a ban on any bank financing a fossil fuel project. It’s not a ban on any insurer insuring one, but it’s a very clear message of the global direction of movements of what the international community is calling for. It’s comparable, I think, with the impact of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and I would say the Paris Agreement was surely more transformational. I don’t think anyone’s seriously saying that this is going to be as transformational as the Paris Agreement.

Gideon Rachman
Remind me — what was agreed in Paris?

Simon Mundy
So in Paris, the countries agreed to keep global temperature rise to well below 2C and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. This provided a real, clear framework and target for which the whole world should aim. And we’ve seen company after company right across the private sector using that as a framework to guide their own actions in their business around energy, around action on reducing energy emissions. But it didn’t make any explicit mention of fossil fuels. So I do think that this will move the needle for at least a lot of companies out there, not only within the energy sector, but also the financial and other companies that work with them.

Gideon Rachman
You mentioned the 1.5 target, and I think I saw Sultan al-Jaber quoted as saying this remains within reach. But I know many people are very sceptical. I remember interviewing Bill Gates for this podcast a while back and he said, well, you know, it’s kind of like a religious slogan, but in reality it’s not gonna happen. What’s your view?

Simon Mundy
This is one of the great debates, isn’t it? I think the science has become clearer and clearer that the idea that temperatures will not exceed one point — for the global average, surface temperature will not go above 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial level. That seems almost impossible at this point. We can’t rule it out altogether. But there are a couple of things I’d say on that. One is that it’s possible that with serious efforts to reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through carbon dioxide removal, whether that’s through nature-based things like planting trees or through new forms of technology, it could be possible to bring it back down. So we need to minimise the extent of the overshoots that we force above that level.

And the second point that I would make, which I think is important, is if you drop the 1.5 target, then again there’s a shift towards seeing a higher level of warming as being acceptable. So if we’re no longer aiming for 1.5, then we start aiming for 2. And then if we go somewhat above 2, then that becomes the new range of acceptable possibilities. So for various reasons, although I would agree with Bill Gates that it seems hugely unlikely that we’ll avoid that overshoot above 1.5 degrees of warming, I still wouldn’t support dropping the idea altogether.

Gideon Rachman
The name that’s come up a few times in our conversation is Sultan al-Jaber. And as you said, there was huge scepticism about the individual, but more about the position that he holds as head of a major oil company. And the next COP is, I believe, gonna be in another big fossil fuel-producing state, Azerbaijan. How much do you think that kind of colours or damages the COP process, this deep involvement of fossil fuel producers? Or maybe they need to be involved.

Simon Mundy
Yeah. This is a debate that has been raging all year. And as I mentioned, I think Sultan al-Jaber has been the most intensely scrutinised president of any of the event. Al Gore, for example, the former US vice-president, has been repeatedly criticising him for his blatant conflict of interest, as Gore puts it, between on the one hand being in charge of this climate process, on the other being in charge of one of the world’s biggest oil and gas-producing companies. And so that’s the sort of, that was the bear case on this man.

The bull case was that you needed to get the big fossil fuel producers onside. If we’re gonna have some agreement on reducing the use of fossil fuels, you have to have someone who is trusted by the Saudis, notably, as well as other big fossil producers. We did see a big pushback from those countries during these talks. Notably, there was a letter that went out from the head of Opec, the cartel of oil-producing states, to all Opec members urging them to push back against the explicit mention in this form of fossil fuels in the text. The FT separately reported that Saudi Arabia had voiced displeasure with the UAE over the mention of fossil fuels in the text, and yet it stayed in there.

Now, I would venture to suggest that it was the very sometimes difficult but historically very close relationship between the UAE and its neighbour, the Saudis, that enabled that agreement to ultimately get over the line. So I think there are still many people who would say that conflict of interest played into the outcome. There are still people here who see loopholes, who see the mention of carbon capture technology and similar things in the text as being a problem. And they would say that reflects the interests of the oil and gas industry.

But I think there are others who say, look, yes, there is a conflict of interest for big fossil fuel producers, but there’s also a conflict of interest for the big fossil fuel consumers such as the big European economies, the US and other wealthy nations. And we’re talking here about a global energy system. It doesn’t do to just demonise the producers of these fossil fuels without thinking seriously about the consuming countries as well.

Gideon Rachman
And that touches on a very important point that comes up in different forms in these discussions, which is how to do this expensive transition at least in a globally just way. Who bears the principal costs? And I know that there’s a lot of people who argue from the global south that it should really be the rich countries of the west that pay for the transition because they’ve been the principal beneficiaries and drivers of fossil fuels over two centuries. On the other hand, you get people in the US pushing back and saying, well, you know, these days it’s China that’s the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions and so on. How was the balance struck at COP between those kinds of concerns?

Simon Mundy
Well, a lot of that still remains open. And it’s really worth remembering that this debate over the fossil fuel phaseout was only one of the big debates here at COP28. And the other big one was about this financial support that the developed countries are expected to provide to the developing ones. As you remember, there was a promise from the developed countries which was agreed at the Copenhagen summit, COP in 2009, to provide $100bn a year in climate-related financial support by 2020. And that promise was repeatedly breached. And this sort of thing has really left a lot of developing countries with a lot of mistrust about the support that they can expect to get here. This is fundamentally, especially if you look on a per capita historical basis, a crisis that has been driven disproportionately by the richest countries in the world. And the impacts are being suffered disproportionately by some of the poorest countries in the world. I’ve been to places in northeastern Ethiopia where people are really struggling to survive as a result of droughts. We saw this terrible flooding in Pakistan last year that drove about $30bn worth of damage. And this sort of thing is just getting more and more serious. So that sort of international assistance has been a big sticking point.

Another important thing that was being discussed here at COP28 was something called the global goal on adaptation. And we saw there some quite tense discussions where various rich countries were really pushing to water down the language. They don’t want to be subject to excessive obligations. They want to create more of a role for other bodies, notably the private sector, to provide more financing. There was a similar dynamic around what’s called the loss and damage fund. So this was probably the most significant thing that came out of the last COP, and it’s something that has been pushed for about 30 years, notably by those Pacific Island states. And the logic of it is that there is loss, economic loss and damage that is being driven by climate impacts and that these overwhelmingly developing countries who suffer these impacts need to have economic and financial support in dealing with them. So they pushed for that for 30 years.

Finally, last year at COP27 in Egypt, the principle was agreed that such a fund should be established. But the details were left open. Here in Dubai, the further details were filled in. We know it’s going to be housed at first in the World Bank. And the first pledges of money were made to get it up and running. But those pledges are really only sufficient, as I say, to get it going, because we’re talking about damages that these countries are suffering reaching potentially hundreds of billions of dollars per year and only hundreds of millions are committed to that fund. And the US, which has really been quite resistant to ambitious proposals for the loss and damage fund, contributed only $17.5mn, which a lot of people saw as quite an insultingly low sum of money.

So that is really something where there’s a lot of tension at the plenary that I just stepped out of. So there’s a lot of work still to be done next year and beyond. And as you said, next year it’ll be happening in Azerbaijan.

Gideon Rachman
And so final question: as we look forward to next year, you’re obviously now a veteran of all these COPs and you know what was achieved at each of them. How do you feel, however, about the whole COP process? Some people regard it as almost something that’s taken on a momentum of its own, that’s constantly lagging behind what’s necessary. There’s always a lot of scepticism about the United Nations generally that runs this process. Do you think there is a better way of doing this?

Simon Mundy
I don’t, actually. I think this is a process, this is an approach that is deeply flawed and deeply frustrating. And the worst approach, except for all the other ones — we could try to butcher Churchill. There is, for all its many flaws, there is something deeply exciting and at times quite inspiring about what you see here. People from every country in the world getting together and having serious conversations now. Now that we’re actually talking about reducing the use of fossil fuels, now that we’re seriously talking about scaling up international financial support for the most vulnerable, these are now serious discussions. I’m not sure — sometimes they weren’t in the past, they weren’t serious enough. But this is what we need to be having. I mean, we are facing a planetary-scale threat to global civilisation. That’s no exaggeration to call it that. And we don’t have a global government, but this sort of thing is absolutely essential if we’re gonna come together and really respond to this in a way that is truly just at the global level.

Some of the flaws that are pointed to around the process would include the need for consensus. So in theory, a single country has the right to block a deal. In practice, it would take more than one country. One country can be gavelled over by the president, and that has happened in the past. But that need for consensus, I personally wouldn’t be in favour of dropping that because, as I’ve been saying earlier in our conversation, it is precisely the fact that this is something that every country in the world has agreed to. That is what gives it its force. And one thing I’d add on that is at a time of conflict in Ukraine, in the Middle East, at a time of really serious geopolitical tensions, to have this sort of forum where every country feels obliged to come and seriously engaged. I think that’s a good thing, not only for the climate, but actually for stable geopolitics and for peacebuilding at the global level.

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Gideon Rachman
That was the FT’s Simon Mundy talking to me from Dubai and ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Next week we’ll be back for an end-of-the-year round-up.

One other thing. The FT is currently holding a charity auction, selling off lunch with our journalists in aid of its financial literacy and inclusion charity. And I’m one of the lots you can bid for. So if you want to have lunch with me or perhaps one of my colleagues at a top restaurant, you can go to FT.com/appeal to see what and who is on offer. And there’s also a link in the show notes.

So that’s it for this week. Please join me again next week for our final edition of 2023.