COP28 UAE President Sultan Al Jaber claimed victory as the latest draft on the Global Stocktake was passed at the climate conference.
Representatives from around 200 nations agreed at the summit to start reducing consumption of fossil fuels to avert the impacts of climate change.
“We have travelled a long road in a short amount of time. We should be proud of this historic achievement,” Al Jaber said.
“We have sent the world in a right direction. We have given it the first action plan to keep 1.5C in reach. It is a plan led by the science. It is a balanced plan that reimagines global finance and delivers loss and damage,” he said.
“We have declarations on agriculture, on food, many more oil and gas companies stepping up for the first time. Stepping up to deliver against very ambitious goals. And for the first time, to deliver on methane and emissions. And we have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement,” said Al Jaber, to a resounding applause.
Al Jaber said that COP28 was the first COP to hold a changemakers majlis.
“I felt that was the turning point. You got out of your comfort zones and started speaking each other from the heart. The change makers majlis made all the difference. Now we can truly say that we united, we acted, and we truly delivered.”
He cautioned that an agreement is only as good as its implementation.
“We are only as good as we do. We must take the steps necessary and turn it into tangible actions,” Al Jaber said.
“Inclusivity has been the beating heart of the process. The process was delivered by strong mentality, by willingness and solidarity,” he added.
Genuine strides
UN Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said that COP28 has delivered some genuine strides forward, tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency.
“COP28 needed to signal a hard stop to fossil fuels and the planet burning. This outcome is the beginning of the end to that,” Stiell said.
“COP28 needed to move further. The Global Stocktake showed us clearly that progress is not fast enough,” he said.
“Litany of loopholes”
A representative from Samoa pushed back on the Global Stocktake decision.
Speaking on behalf of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), Anne Rasmussen, Assistant CEO at Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment Samoa, said: “AOSIS has been very clear that the Global Stocktake must be the vehicle for delivery of course correction, yet it sputters in significant areas.
“In terms of safeguarding 1.5C in a meaningful way — the language is certainly a step forward, it speaks to transitioning away from fossil fuels in a way the process has not done before.”
Rasmussen continued: “But we must note the text does not speak specifically about fossil fuel phase out and mitigation in a way that is in fact the step change that is needed. It is incremental and not transformational.”
Her speech was met with a thunderous applause and a standing ovation.
“We see a litany of loopholes in this text that are a major concern to us,” she said.
“We refer to the science throughout the text, 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,” the Rasmussen said, adding, “It is not enough for us to refer to science and then make agreements that ignore what the science is telling us we need to do.”
(bindu.rai@lseg.com and imogen.lillywhite@lseg.com)
