COP28

This week we talk about methane, the UAE, and organizational capture. We also discuss climate change, broken governmental promises, and Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber. Recommended Book: Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus Transcript The United Nations Climate Change Conferences, often referred to as COP meetings, short for "Conference of the Parties," are formal, annual meetings where issues related to climate change are discussed by attendees. These meetings have been occurring at their yearly cadence since 1995—though the November 2020 meeting was put off till November 2021, because of the COVID pandemic that almost entirely dominated international attention and governmental efforts, that year. COP meetings are held in different locations around the world, with host countries chosen from among those that offer to provide the requisite facilities and services for all attendees, which can represent a who's who of governments and businesses; so this isn't quite an Olympics level of commitment and expense, but it is quite an undertaking, as those host countries need to provide security for all those leaders, translation services for six different working languages, and they also need to help engage stakeholders, ranging from diplomats to the CEOs of the world's biggest companies, flogging support for the meetings themselves, but also the core themes of each meeting, which vary from year to year. These themes are important, as they've historically led to some of the most vital agreements we've seen between nations and other stakeholders, including the Kyoto Protocol, which was an early, 1990s-era emissions-reduction agreement between wealthy nations, and the Paris Agreement, which expounded upon that same general concept, though with much more aggressive targets and a wider scope of things the signatories had to take into consideration. On November 30 through December 12 of 2023, signatory nations and other entities will meet for the COP28 meeting, this time hosted in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. This is interesting for several reasons, but the most prominent—and the reason this choice was controversial—is that the UAE, like many other nations in the region, is a huge fossil fuel producer, about 30% of its total economy reliant on oil and gas exports. What's more, the President-Designate for COP28—the person who was put in charge of running things, but also getting those aforementioned stakeholders in line, making commitments, showing support, doing all the things they need to do to make this a successful COP meeting with something to show for their efforts—is Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber: the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology for the UAE, the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, also called Masdar, and the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company—the first CEO to serve as a COP President, and, well, definitely the first oil company CEO to head up a meeting meant to help the world deal with climate change that's being amplified by the products his company is producing and selling. What I'd like to talk about today is COP28 and what we might expect to emerge from this very unusual, but also quite significant, get together. — Al Jaber's appointment as the COP president for this year's meeting was a controversial choice, to say the least. Dubai being selected as the host-city was one thing, but an oil executive running the show? This reeked, to some commentators and analysts, at least, as a sort of organizational capture: the United Nations either overrun by financial interests to the point that those interests were able to insert themselves even into this increasingly vital annual summit, or—maybe—the organization overcome by a naive sort of optimistic earnestness, wanting to get everyone involved, including those in some ways most responsible for the climate-related issues we face, to the point that the reins were ultimately handed over to one of those people, to do with as he and his ilk please. It's unclear which of these, or other possibilities explain this, again quite controversial choice of host city and president, but there has already been some more obvious, scandalous behavior arising from this meeting, beyond the jarring dissonance of having oil people run a climate change-focused meeting. Back in June of 2023, it was reported that the UAE's state oil company, Adnoc, was able to read emails to and from the official COP28 summit office, despite claims that the latter's email system was kept separate from the former's. The concern was that this state oil company, which would seem to have immense financial interest in slowing or stopping the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, as the longer they can keep legally and profitably pumping and selling, the more profit they can wring from their existing assets, they could see what was being said by and to the folks behind this climate summit, which is ostensibly at least meant to help speed up that transition away from fossil fuels. Those concerns were confirmed by The Guardian, and though the COP28 office altered their digital setup after the reporting was done, this added fuel to the concern-fire that was already burning because the UAE and Al Jaber were in charge of things; it seemed like they would have every reason in the world to put their thumbs on the scale and nudge the meeting in favor of the fossil fuel industry, given the chance, and this email issue seemed to confirm that notion. There have also been concerns that the UAE authorities will weaponize their already widespread digital surveillance apparatus—which is generally used to stifle religious and political freedoms in-country—to target COP meeting attendees with the same, tracking their actions and communications with spyware, among other violations. A letter was written to the UN by a bunch of politicians from the EU and US, asking the body behind the COP meetings to remove Al Jaber, and a slew of organizations and activists have separately done the same. The counterpoint presented by the UAE and Al Jaber himself, though, alongside supporters of how this meeting is coming together, including, at times at least, the US climate envoy John Kerry and EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, is that alongside his role running a state-owned fossil fuel company, Al Jaber also founded and runs Masdar, which invests heavily in renewable energy, and which is meant to serve as a foot in the door for the UAE as they attempt to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels; Masdar has invested in renewable projects in 40 countries, so far, and have targeted builting 100GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. Under Al Jaber, Abu Dhabi's National Oil Company has invested in carbon capture and green hydrogen projects, and has been investing in nuclear and solar power, as well. None of these efforts compare to the investments that have been made, under his leadership, in fossil fuel capacity; it's night a day. But the argument in his favor is that he's a skilled energy world executive, and one that is actually making practical moves to transition to renewables: he's not doing it overnight, but he's actually doing something, and that makes him a credible source for usable ideas as to how other companies can do the same, while also putting someone at the reins who knows how to talk to and deal with energy executives—many of whom couldn't care less about investing in renewables—and that means it's possible he might be able to get them to make these sorts of iterative changes, as well. He's a choice that doesn't preach to the choir, basically; he's meant to preach to those who aren't yet convinced. And this will be a COP meeting with a LOT of oil industry higher-ups in attendance; which theoretically at least supports the assertion made by critics that the meeting has been captured, serving as a safe space for fossil fuel industry representatives who want to paint themselves as eco-friendly and thus, empowered to play a role in determining how quickly, or slowly, the transition to renewables occurs. But the counterpoint to this regulatory capture theory is that having true-believers at the helm—folks who see the oil industry as villains, in many cases—having them running things, hasn't historically served to get these oil companies to do anything except deny deny deny and do what they can to further entrench themselves in their existing energy source and business models; so maybe this, putting one of their own at the front of the room, and one of them who seems to be comfortable keeping a foot in both worlds, maybe that will help shift their collective stance a bit. Beyond the hubbub over who's hosting the show, there are also a few other interesting things to watch as this year's COP meeting unfolds. The first is that the US and China recently came to a new agreement to dramatically increase the production of renewable energy, tripling global capacity by 2030 in order to reduce their emissions and displace fossil fuels. The US and China's emissions, combined, account for something like 38% of the world's total, so anything these countries do in this space is already a big deal. But the last time the US and China landed on this sort of agreement, back in 2015, the language they used ended up informing the Paris Agreement that was made real at that year's COP meeting—an agreement meant to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius; so it could be that this new agreement also feeds into a larger, more international and inclusive agreement, once again. That said, there's a lot of arguably justified concern that this year's COP, like many previous COPs, will be a lot of talk without much or any action. It's easy to make commitments in a context in which one's words will net one's country a lot of goodwill in the press, but a lot more difficult to actually live up to those commitments—as governments around the world have discovered time and time again with climate-related issues. Our newest climate data indicate we'll likely fly right by the 1.5 degrees C average warming milestone this decade: much earlier than was previously estimated, and early enough that many experts are saying that goal, keeping temperature increases below that level, which has become a bit of a rallying cry for environmentalists and entities shifting to renewable energy, in recent years, they say it's probably out of reach. It's still important that we reduce emissions and halt heating as soon as possible, in other words, but the number we've held up as being an aggressive, optimistic goal that is nonetheless achievable might not be realistic, anymore. That new report is far from the last word on this, but a seeming inability to live up to climate commitments, combined with ever-bettering data-collection and computational resources has left us with a much higher-resolution understanding of how bad the situation is, and a much steeper mountain to climb if we want to accomplish even the relatively less-impressive goals that are still within reach; which makes the whole concept a tougher sell, especially when it seems easier to just throw up one's hands in frustration or disbelief, rather than making the sacrifices that might be necessary to get where we ostensibly need to be. And that's the second main, interesting thing to be watching here: the impact that better tools and data from those tools, and research done with that better data, will have on these discussions and the overall timber and tone of what people are saying. These new talks are arriving in the wake of some significant new developments in methane-tracking capabilities: satellites that allow researchers to pinpoint methane emissions hotspots, which in turn tells them which governments are failing to cap emitting wells, or which businesses are, as was the case in Kazakhstan recently, a local mining company allowing methane to flow freely from their infrastructure, causing untold damage that can be relatively inexpensively remedied once the emitting entities know what's happening and if the right kind of pressure is applied, to force their hand—two variables that are increasingly likely to align, appropriately, because of these new tools and techniques. Satellites capable of providing other sorts of high-resolution data, like where CO2 emissions are the worst, for instance, down to the level of an individual power plant, can also help us figure out where our problems are centralized, but they also allow us to name-and-shame, with receipts, if necessary, to force entities that would otherwise try to deny and sweep this kind of thing under the rug to acknowledge their failure in this regard, making issues that they currently might record as externalities, internal, in turn making it more likely something will be done, rather than these issues being ignored and compounding over time. And third, one of the many commitments countries—especially wealthy countries—have made over the course of previous COP meetings, is to provide a bunch of money to less-wealthy countries meant to help pay climate-related reparations, and for a transition to renewables, helping them bypass the emissions-related excesses today's wealthy countries have indulged in. Those already wealthy countries are the source of the vast, vast majority of today's emissions, and the idea is to help not-yet-wealthy countries scale-up and become richer without also creating more emissions as a consequence: a reasonable-sounding ambition, but that kind of pivot is not cheap or easy. The aid many countries have been told they would get as part of this effort hasn't yet materialized, though—$100 billion was promised by wealthy countries for poorer countries by 2020, to kick things off, to help them move toward renewables, and for losses and damages caused by existing climate change impacts. And that was meant to be just the initial round of funding that would eventually lead to trillions a year. Even that initial $100 billion didn't arrive, though, and while you could argue that some other, fairly immediate concerns reared their heads in 2020 that necessitated the rerouting of those funds toward other, pandemic-related issues, this is often touted of an example of just how untrustworthy these wealthier countries and their promises are; even the initial promise was a lie, so why shouldn't these countries that were lied to pursue whichever path is best for them and their immediate fortunes, whatever the consequences, like those wealthier countries were able to do in previous decades and centuries? Those are big questions, but probably the biggest one is whether those attending COP28 will be able to get an actual commitment to phase-out fossil fuels on the table, and then adopted by those participating. Many nations, including the most powerful and emitting in the world, have been unwilling to do this, consisting adopting weaker language, making smaller, pseudo-promises, not quite stepping up to the plate on a firm commitment to that kind of transition, instead opting for language that allows wiggle-room and doesn't upset any of the existing fossil fuel-related global systems, including existing energy businesses, but also countries—like the UAE and the US—that are major fossil fuel exporters. Most analysts don't expect that language to arrive at this meeting, either, and the general consensus is that we'll probably see another relatively, iterative step in the right direction across many metrics at COP28; maybe something based on all that new data with a little more enforcement-related teeth, but likely not a big enough step to close the gap between where we thought we were, and where we now realize, because of the most up-to-date climate findings, we actually are. Show Notes https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/environment-co2-pollution-satellite https://archive.ph/ODvEK https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/07/uae-oil-firm-cop28-climate-summit-emails-sultan-al-jaber-adnoc https://archive.ph/Ta5hk https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/uae-concerns-around-authorities-use-of-digital-surveillance-during-cop28/ https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/380412/masdar-renewable-energy-hydrogen/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/global-warming-will-reach-15c-threshold-this-decade-report-2023-11-02/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/18/us-china-agreement-sets-the-tone-for-cop28/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/17/cop28-host-uae-breaking-its-own-ban-on-routine-gas-flaring-data-shows https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17112023/harder-to-kick-climate-can-from-cop28/ https://grist.org/international/international-climate-finance-adaptation/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/what-the-eu-and-us-want-to-get-done-at-cop28/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/climate/us-china-climate-agreement.html https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/10/cop28-host-uae-pushes-oil-producers-for-climate-pledges-00126619 https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/15/un-climate-cop26-pledges/?stream=top https://www.ghgsat.com/en/newsroom/worlds-first-commercial-co2-sensor-in-orbit/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-15/exxon-ceo-says-making-big-oil-villains-harms-net-zero-drive?stream=top#xj4y7vzkg https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-promises-substantial-climate-damage-funding-pledge/ https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67143989 https://archive.ph/KHWOL https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-13/gulf-nations-must-overhaul-everything-to-meet-climate-goals?cmpid=BBD111523_GREENDAILY https://www.semafor.com/article/11/10/2023/the-battle-lines-to-watch-at-cop28 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/the-bankers-are-back-finance-industry-plans-for-cop28?cmpid=BBD111523_GREENDAILY#xj4y7vzkg https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_12.pdf https://www.wri.org/research/state-climate-action-2023 https://www.axios.com/2023/11/20/un-climate-change-emissions-gap?stream=top https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/the-big-picture/what-are-united-nations-climate-change-conferences/how-cops-are-organized-questions-and-answers https://www.uae-embassy.org/discover-uae/climate-and-energy/uae-energy-diversification

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