Cop28: backlash after president claims ‘no science’ behind fossil fuel phase-out – live | Cop28

A timely new report is out today. While the CEO of ExxonMobil was complaining this weekend that Cop28 does not focus enough on carbon capture and storage, research shows that a high Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) pathway to net zero emissions in 2050 is expected to cost at least $30 trillion more than a low CCS pathway – roughly $1 trillion per year.

Oil and gas companies hope that CCS can keep their operations going for longer and at a larger scale, but the scientific community has cast doubts on whether it can be used at scale, beyond the heavy industries it is very difficult to decarbonise.

CCS is set to feature prominently at the summit this week, with major oil and gas producing countries expected to unveil shared carbon storage goals.

The analysis from the Smith School at the University of Oxford has found rolling out CCS throughout the economy, rather than just in a handful of essential sectors, makes little sense from a financial perspective.

“Relying on mass deployment of CCS to facilitate high ongoing use of fossil fuels would cost society around a trillion dollars extra each year – it would be highly economically damaging,” says Dr Rupert Way, Honorary Research Associate at the Oxford Smith School.

Nina Lakhani

John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate was just asked on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in the UK what he thinks of Damian Carrington’s scoop that Sultan Al Jaber said there was ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels.

He was very diplomatic in his response and appeared to give the oil chief and Cop28 president the benefit of the doubt.

“Well I think what he was saying … is the science itself does not prescribe a particular approach, it doesn’t say you have to do this or you have to do that,” Kerry explained.

“What you have to do is clearly reduce the emissions. They have made it clear we need a 43% minimum reduction in emissions by 2030, and we need net zero 2050 in order to meet the goal of keeping 1.5. We’ve got all kinds of ways of getting there. Renewables are the one technology we really know we can deploy today and it has the impact we need.”

He then spent some time talking about the US climate goals and that they are signed up to phase out fossil fuels.

“We are not only signed up to that, president Biden on behalf of the US voted to join the g7 where we said we must phase out unabated fossil fuel. We have to do that yes otherwise you cannot reach net zero by 2050. What we are trying to figure out is how we can capture those emissions, or reduce those emissions, or not make those emissions in the first place.

“I think the only question here is not whether or not you are going to reduce emissions, it’s what means are you going to use to go at this to provide the energy you want for your country but also keeping faith with the reduction of the emissions that are creating the climate crisis.”

Women’s rights organisations are being shut out of climate finance, a new report by CARE International UK has found.

Launched to coincide with Finance and Gender Day, the study shows that women’s rights organisations received less than 0.2% of UK bilateral climate finance in 2022. Even though the impacts of climate breakdown are linked to gender inequality, less than 1% of UK bilateral climate finance targeted gender equality specifically last year.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that only 38% of registered delegates at Cop28 are women, an increase of 1% compared to Cop27 – historically negotiations have been very male-dominated, allowing gender inequality to be sidelined. Of the 133 world leaders attending COP28, just 15 were women.

Stephanie Akrumah, a climate activist and Director of the Centre for Green Growth, a Ghana based NGO, said:

“Women and girls should be at the centre of tackling the climate crisis but instead, our voices are silenced and we are ignored when funding is distributed. Conscious and unconscious barriers holding women back must be demolished. We are losing our lives and livelihoods due to climate change caused by rich countries and corporations. It is time for Rishi Sunak and other world leaders to listen and support women and girls.”

Here is some further reading on gender and climate.

Our leader column today calls for a “green Marshall plan” to phase out fossil fuels for good.

It says that it is “crazy” that governments plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 that is consistent with a “safe” global temperature rise of 1.5C.

Indeed, the 2015 Paris agreement does not mention fossil fuels as responsible for global heating, so countries can both sign up to meet 1.5C while rolling out new oil and gas exploration contracts.

It points out that although Colombia’s economy is dependent on fossil fuels, which account for about half of its exports, its president has committed to stop the expansion of coal, oil and gas exploitation. If they can do it, why can’t we?

Read more below.

New Zealand has won an award at Cop28. Unfortunately it is not one to be proud of. Each day, the Climate Action Network is branding one country the “fossil of the day” – an award for the most bone-headed and regressive climate action.

Yesterday, it was given to New Zealand because of the newly-formed government’s choice to overturn the existing world-leading ban on new oil and gas exploration. Christopher Luxon, the new prime minister, has vowed to open the country’s vast ocean to more oil and gas exploration, rowing back on his predecessor Jacinda Ardern’s 2018 ban.

Climate Action Network says:

“Does climate change minister Simon Watts not hear the climate alarm bells ringing? He may underestimate the devastating climate consequences of this decision but we, and their Pacific island neighbours in Palau, who slammed his intentions as ‘TRAGIC’, certainly do not.

“Minister Watts may be new to his role but we remember the decade-long campaign led by Indigenous Māori communities who succeeded in achieving a ban on oil and gas exploration in New Zealand’s oceans. Not only does Watts and the rest of the New Zealand government want to remove the country’s legacy of climate leadership but they also seek to redefine legislative interpretation of the country’s founding treaty with Māori communities, to reassess Treaty-based policies, and to roll back official use of Māori language – undoing the progress made between Māori and government relationships.”

Most of the world does not have fossil fuel phase out plan – report

Al Gore: phase out would be one of ‘most significant events in history of humanity’

Oliver Milman

Sultan Al Jaber may not think a phase out of fossil fuels is necessary, but Pikachu certainly disagrees. My colleague Damian Carrington sends in this snap of an eye-catching protest for the ‘finance day’ of the summit.

Mia Mottley: ‘extreme weather records are tumbling, and our finance systems cannot cope’

Health agreement reached – but no mention of fossil fuels

Nina Lakhani

Opening summary