COP28 gets under way to face mammoth climate challenge

Nations adopt loss and damage fund, but fight expected over fossil fuels

- David Fogarty

The world’s largest climate conference got under way on Nov 30 in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) against a backdrop of record global temperatures and deadly weather disasters.

Calls have intensified for the two-week conference to agree on a timeline to phase out fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming.

But a major fight is expected over the language around the future of fossil fuels, still the world’s largest source of energy, especially in many poorer nations.

The key question is how to phase out coal, oil and gas in a timely but fair manner.

More than 70,000 people are expected to attend the United Nations’ COP28 climate conference in Dubai Expo City that will run until Dec 12 – a mix of government delegates, civil society, business groups, academics and the media.

Negotiators from nearly 200 nations are tasked with signing off on a deal that will put the world on a safer path by mapping out ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, ramp up renewable energy investment, and significantly boost finance for poorer nations to turn their economies greener and cope with increasingly severe climate impacts.

“If we do not signal the terminal decline of the fossil fuel era as we know it, we welcome our own terminal decline – and we choose to pay with people’s lives,” UN climate chief Simon Stiell said at the formal opening of the talks. He added that the world has been taking baby steps to tackle accelerating climate change instead of the sprint that is needed.

“This has been the hottest year ever for humanity,” he said. But there were clear choices that could be made to make the world safer.