It’s 13 December 2023. Excited reports of a “landmark” global climate agreement reverberate around the world from the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
At around 11am, weary diplomats with circles under their eyes from fierce, all-night negotiations cheer, cry and hug.
The US’s climate envoy John Kerry throws his arms around German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. There’s a round of applause for Tina Stege, a fierce representative from the Marshall Islands who had fought among the hardest for the pledge.
They and more than 190 other countries have just agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels” – the culmination of a fraught two weeks of talks at the UN conference.
This may not sound very “historic”, given burning fossil fuels is the number one cause of climate change, and these annual talks had been going on for almost 30 years.
COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber and UN climate chief Simon Stiell applaud the final outcome. Pic AP
But no pact had ever even mentioned the words “fossil fuels” before – not even the historic Paris Agreement. It had always faced opposition from economies that rely on fossil fuels, like Russia and Saudi Arabia.
This was the first time these countries could stomach such a commitment – and it was hard won.
Several countries had fought tooth and nail to keep such words out of the final agreement, now known as the “UAE Consensus”.
They had also battled over a pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030, but that cinched its way into the pact too.
Fast forward to this year, as we approach COP29 in Azerbaijan in November, it’s now possible to tell whether countries have stuck to their pledge – or whether it was all hot air.
And there is something…
