Short Wave - Climate Talks Call For A Transition Away From Fossil Fuels. Is That Enough?

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

For the first time in its history, the United Nations climate conference concluded with a call to transition away from fossil fuels. But not all of the nearly 200 countries present at the meeting, known as COP28, were happy with the final agreement. Critics of the agreement had instead called for a clear path towards phasing out fossil fuels and pointed out a "litany of loopholes" in the final text. This episode, we look at the tensions and breakthroughs of the conference — and how far behind we are in limiting the devastating impacts that could be on the way.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey everyone, Regina Barber here. Every year, countries from around the world meet in a huge summit. It's about how to get climate change under control. I congratulate all parties for this historic decision. The talks just ended last week, and we want to know what happened and is the world any closer to slowing the pace of climate change. Two of NPR's climate change reporters are here, Laurence, Summer. Hi there, hey. And Julia Simon. Hello. And this year, the big debate was around fossil fuels. Yeah,

we're talking about oil, gas, and coal. The world is still burning a lot of them. And that, of course, is the main driver of climate change. The question is whether the world should stop using them altogether. Okay, so I can see how this sets up an intense debate, like since some countries like the United Arab Emirates, which hosted the talks, makes a lot of money exporting oil. Right, but many developing countries are pushing for an end to fossil fuels because their very existences on the line. You know, if you're a small island nation, stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels are a massive threat. Communities are being destroyed and, you know, the cost is enormous. Negotiator John Silk of the Marshall Islands talked about that.

I came here to build a canoe together for my country. Instead, we had built a canoe with a weak and leaky hall, full of old. This whole summit, it's known as COP28. It was held in the United Arab Emirates, again, one of the world's top oil exporters. The oil industry had this big present. OPEC, the oil cartel. They had a pavilion. There was a record number of fossil fuel lobbyists four times more than last year.

First time, an ExxonMobil CEO attended a cop. Wow. Okay, so that maybe changed the dynamic of this one? Yeah, many in the oil industry were pushing for the focus. of the agreement not to be on the fossil fuels themselves that cause emissions, there was this big struggle around this. There were some breakthroughs, though. One that could help developing countries that are already suffering major impacts from, you know,

extreme storms and disasters, because they are having to pay for all that damage. So today on the show, the progress the world made on climate change at COP28 and how far behind we are in limiting the devastating impacts that could be on the way. You're listening to Shorewave, the science podcast from NPR. Okay, so every year countries meet to negotiate about climate change. Lauren, remind us what these summits are all about. So these talks are kind of this moment where the world gets together and asks, are we on track to deal with climate change?

You know, at one of the biggest summits, it was back in Paris in 2015, and world leaders set a really important benchmark. They agreed to try to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which is 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Beyond that level, if it gets hotter, the impacts get substantially worse. And we're not on track to meet that goal, right? Nope. Not right now. Emissions from fossil fuels are not dropping.

So at these climate summits, countries are supposed to negotiate, and they write this big agreement about what they're willing to do. Though it's a non-binding agreement, I should say. And every year, as you might imagine, there's a big push and pull about how far countries are willing to go. This is how U.S. climate envoy John Kerry describes it. This is a big ship you have to turn. You all know from the Titanic and other things, you can turn that wheel hard over and it'll take a mile to. It takes a long time before the ship turns. And that's where we are. But I think it's speeding up by the day.

Okay, it doesn't make me feel good that he uses a Titanic reference. So at these climate change talks, burning fossil fuels was a big focus. So, Julia, what did countries decide to do about it? Yeah, so there's this tension over whether the final agreement that comes out of these talks would call for a, quote, phase down of fossil fuels or a quote, phase out of fossil fuels. Phase out, that basically means transitioning away from fossil fuels to things like wind, solar, you know, big batteries. Phase down, that leaves a longer future for planet heating fossil fuels.

And there was one guy who kind of became a stand-in. for the debate about this language. His name is Sultan Ahmed El-Ghber. He was president of the talks. He's also chief executive of the state-run oil company in the United Arab Emirates. And is this where a viral, infamous video comes in? Yes, the infamous video. You may have heard about it, if you are a climate nerd and we're following it. But it's this webinar video that surfaced during the talks, first published in The Guardian, where El-Jabber says incorrectly that there is no. science out there that the phase out of fossil fuels is necessary. Yeah, and to be clear, that is

incorrect. Fossil fuels are the biggest source of emissions, and a United Nations report just found emissions need to fall more than 40% by 2030, which is very soon. So fossil fuels, they have to be part of that according to the science. El Jebber, he says his remarks were taken out of context, but it wasn't just algebra. OPEC's secretary general wrote a letter urging countries to block language about the phase down or phase out of fossil fuels. Up until almost the end, people weren't sure if the final text would mention fossil fuels at all. What emerged, though, is an agreement where basically everyone, nearly 200 countries, say it's time to transition away from fossil fuels. Here's El Javier at the final session.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world needed to find a new way. And by following our North Star, we have found that new path. Okay, so fossil fuels made it in. That's a big deal. It is, it is. It's the first time the text has mentioned fossil fuels in 28 cops. But it did not explicitly call for a phase out of fossil fuels. It called for a transition.

Not everyone was happy with the final agreement. Right before Ejibber hit the gavel, he said, hating no objection. It is so decided. But Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the small island developing states, which represents countries like Samoa, where she's from, a small island that's very affected by climate change. Resmison, she was concerned about a litany of loopholes, she said, for fossil fuels. We referenced the science throughout the text and even in this paragraph, but then we

refrain from an agreement to take the relevant action in order to act in line with what the science says we have to do. It is not enough for us to reference the science and then make agreements that ignore what the science is telling us we need to do. Because while this agreement calls for a tripling of renewable energy, which is helpful for reducing greenhouse gases, some, including Rasmussen, were concerned about other technologies that are being promoted in the text. Something called carbon capture and storage. It's this tech that captures planet heating emissions. It stores it underground. The tech is very expensive. It uses a lot of energy. and many projects don't trap as much pollution as they aim to. Wow.

Yeah. Also, scientists worry this tech, it's very largely unproven. It's being proposed to prolong the life of fossil fuel operations. And again, this agreement is looking to accelerate this tech. Okay, so Lauren, what would the world look like if it gets much hotter than 1.5 degrees Celsius? Yeah, so the track that the world is on right now, it's over 1.5 degrees. And 1.5 is a really key threshold that scientists have figured out because warming beyond that, the impacts just really get worse. You know, that includes ones we're already seeing.

So more intense storms, more intense rainfall, more dangerous heat waves. And then Jim Ski, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which puts out this major science assessment of climate change. He says there are more. For example, impacts on the productivity of food systems starts to come in. We will lose pretty much all our warm water. corals around the globe. We lost many, many already. So there's a lot to be worried about if we go well beyond 1.5 degrees. Okay. So what else was a big focus this year at COP 28? Yeah. So the other place where there really was some news was about money, which is a topic at every single cop.

But this time around, around $700 million was pledged for something that's pretty new. And it's for what's known as loss and damage. So the case that developing nations have been making for years is that they have done very little to cause climate change. You know, if you go back to the Industrial Revolution, the U.S. and Europe and richer countries, they're responsible for the biggest share of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere. So as developing countries are getting hit with these bigger storms and droughts and rising seas, they're having to pay for that. And that's what this loss and damage fund is designed to help them with. You know, it was last, year at the COP negotiations they agreed to create the fund. And this is the first money that's

been pledged for it. Okay. So how far will that money go in helping developing countries? Is it enough? No, no. It's that those pledges are less than 1% of the annual need because a UN report found the need is well over $200 billion with a B billion dollars per year. And that's because, you know, entire communities will need to be relocated. And infrastructure needs to be strengthened or moved. So this really is a drop in the bucket. And, you know, some of the biggest advocates for this are worried that that just relying on richer countries to kind of offer the money year after year, it's just not feasible. Mia Motley, who's the Prime Minister of Barbados, says there needs to be another way, like taxing oil and gas companies. If we took 5% of oil and gas profits, last year,

oil and gas profits were $4 trillion, that would give us $200 billion. And if, you're in the People got accustomed to treat in 95% as 100%. They wouldn't lose anything or feel that they lost anything. They would still be able to function and to invest and to expand. You know, that's just kind of one idea. Developing countries are thinking of other ways to kind of create taxes or ways of funding this loss and damage. But it's really going to be a big debate going forward.

So given that the world is not on track to avoid some pretty extreme climate problems, how much do these negotiations actually matter? Yeah, well, countries are getting creative here. And in Dubai, you saw some countries calling for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, basically calling to not use fossil fuels to leave them in the ground. It's non-binding, but you had some big news during these talks. I spoke to Zipporah Berman while she was in Dubai. She's chair of the fossil fuel treaty. She told me how Colombia, this is this big oil exporter with lots of oil, lots and gas, during the talks, they announced they were signing the treaty. A really big deal here at COP because it's signaled that a fossil fuel-producing nation is not only willing to commit to stop expanding fossil fuels, but is encouraging other countries to do that. So a lot of people say these meetings are important as a place for all countries, particularly developing countries that are affected by climate change to get together and make progress on climate solutions, even if the solutions aren't

expressly in the UN agreements. Yeah. And, you know, as for the talks themselves, there is a real debate about this, right? Because it is a moment where countries say they might do something. It's not binding. And a lot of countries are not on track for the pledges that they've made. So certainly on one side, people say, you know, is this a lot of climate theater? But, you know, on the other hand, this is really the moment every year where a lot of developing countries, smaller countries, can kind of come to the table and really talk about how climate change is affecting them, how it's really putting their ways of life in jeopardy. And so this is a really big stage to highlight those concerns.

And year by year, you know, the changes are small, but changes are being made in terms of the signals that countries are sending about what they're willing to do to stop climate change. Julia, Lauren, thanks to both of you for breaking all this down for us. Thank you, Regina, for having us. Yep, anytime. Before we head out, the end of the year is coming up and we're reflecting a bit here at Shortwave. We've loved bringing you stories and interviews about climate conferences, climate solutions, science movies like Oppenheimer, space and critters. And we're excited about everything we'll dig into in 2024, hopefully with your financial support. This is where we want to say a big thank you to our Shortwave Plus supporters and anyone listening who already donates to public media.

Your support makes independent and accurate journalism possible. We prioritize facts, context, and different perspectives. And we're beholden to no one except you, the public. And to anyone out there who isn't a supporter yet, right now is the time to get behind the NPR network, especially with newsrooms gearing up for an important election year. Supporting public media now takes just a few minutes and makes a real different in what's possible moving forward.

So join NPR Plus, or make a tax deduction, Thank you. Thank you. This episode was produced by Chloe Weiner, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Julia Ann Lauren. Josh Newell was the audio engineer. I'm Regina Barber.

Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.