Dubious Dubai decision: democracy and diesel aren't dead yet
The last moments of COP28 saw green dreams go from despair to hope and now somewhere between the two. The world has seemingly decided to 'phase out' fossil fuels. But with what?
It has been an exceptionally emotional few weeks for the Guardian’s bloated climate team. With all hopes for saving the planet invested in a meeting in a ‘petro-state’, the outlook was so bleak, you could almost believe that the Guardian wanted the 28th meeting to be a failure.
Cop28 host UAE planned to promote oil deals during climate talks, said the headline on the 27th November, with the story alleging that ‘Leaked briefing documents for meetings with governments contained ‘asks’ from state oil firm’.
Things were even worse the following week… Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels.
“I don’t think [you] will be able to help solve the climate problem by pointing fingers or contributing to the polarisation and the divide that is already happening in the world. Show me the solutions. Stop the pointing of fingers. Stop it,” Al Jaber said.
Guterres told Cop28 delegates on Friday: “The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.”
Bill Hare, the chief executive of Climate Analytics, said: “This is an extraordinary, revealing, worrying and belligerent exchange. ‘Sending us back to caves’ is the oldest of fossil fuel industry tropes: it’s verging on climate denial.”
“Al Jaber is asking for a 1.5C roadmap – anyone who cares can find that in the International Energy Agency’s latest net zero emissions scenario, which says there cannot be any new fossil fuel development. The science is absolutely clear [and] that absolutely means a phase-out by mid-century, which will enhance the lives of all of humanity.”
Notice, however, that The Guardian was not able to provide a reply to Al Jaber, to explain how fossil fuels could be ‘phased out’. There is merely the reiteration of the insistence that they must be. The IEA’s roadmap is science fiction, scribbled on the back of an envelope, not a plausible policy framework. It predicts 90% of electricity to come from ‘renewables’ by 2050, for example, but doesn’t explain what happens when there is no wind and no sun.
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