In the face of a yawning gap in efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, 118 nations at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates pledged on Dec. 2 to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency savings by 2030.
COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber announced the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, which will target expansion of global renewable capacity to 11,000 GW by 2030, while also raising the global annual rate for energy efficiency improvements from 2% to 4% per year.
The pledge states that “renewable deployment must be accompanied this decade by … a phasedown of unabated coal power, in particular ending the continued investment in unabated new coal-fired power plants, which is incompatible with efforts to limit warning to 1.5 degrees C.”
The pledge specifically commits nations to “put the principle of energy efficiency as the ‘first fuel’ at the core of policymaking, planning and major investment decisions.”
Countries signing onto the pledge are encouraged to adopt “ambitious national policies on renewable energy,” including accelerating permitting of renewable projects and infrastructure, expanding grid connections and improving energy system integration, and providing clarity on market design and investment frameworks for renewables.
“The world does not work without energy,” al-Jaber said in the COP28 press release on the pledge. “Yet the world will break down if we do not fix [the] energies we use today, mitigate their emissions at a gigaton scale and rapidly transition to zero-carbon alternatives.”
But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen framed the pledge as a first step toward a fossil fuel phaseout. “With this global pledge, we have built a broad and strong coalition of countries committed to the clean energy transition ― big and small, north and south, heavy emitters, developing nations and small island states,” she said. “We are united by our common belief that to respect the 1.5 degrees C goal in the Paris Agreement, we need to phase out fossil fuels. We do that by fast-tracking the clean energy transition, by tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency.”
The EU will invest $2.5 billion in the energy transition over the next two years, she said.
Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, hailed the pledge as “a milestone to be celebrated. It signals that the global community is united in its goal to advance the clean energy transition ― and is aware of the enormous level of deployment needed to do so quickly. To reach this goal, the business community has an essential role to play in directing investment and deploying technologies ― in all sectors and all geographies.”
Climate activists were more critical. While welcoming the renewables pledge, Janet Milongo, senior officer at the International Climate Action Network, said it “still falls short of what is required to achieve global climate goals. Prolongation of fossil fuel lifelines is evident. Dangerous distractions like carbon capture and storage have no place in an energy transition plan,” referring to the pledge’s mentions of “unabated coal power.”
The pledge was part of a series of announcements Dec. 2, made under an umbrella initiative, led by al-Jaber and the U.A.E., dubbed the Global Decarbonization Accelerator.
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- The U.A.E.’s Hydrogen Statement of Intent drew support from 27 countries, pledging to “endorse a global certification scheme and to recognize existing certification schemes … to unlock global trade in low-carbon hydrogen.”
- Fifty companies, representing 40% of global oil production, have signed an Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, committing to zero methane emissions and the end of “routine” flaring by 2030 and total net-zero operations by 2050.
- A Global Cooling Pledge will target a 68% cut in GHG emissions from refrigeration and space cooling technologies by 2050. Space cooling and refrigeration now account for 7% of global emissions but are expected to increase as more nations expand their use of air conditioning. According to the announcement, 52 nations have signed the pledge thus far.
A $1 billion effort to cut methane and other non-carbon greenhouse gas emissions will be announced Dec. 5. A key question now is whether the renewables pledge will be included in the final official agreement from the conference.
‘Urgency of the Moment’
With President Joe Biden deciding not to travel to the U.A.E., the U.S. presence at the COP28 initially was more muted than in the past, starting out with a widely criticized $17.5 million pledge to the new loss and damage fund approved on the first day of the conference.
The U.A.E. pledged $100 million and the EU pledged $245 million for the fund, which is intended to compensate developing countries for damages they already have sustained from extreme weather events made worse by climate change.
Speaking at the conference Dec. 2, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a $3 billion U.S. pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries invest in clean energy and resilience. As part of the Paris climate accords, industrialized countries including the U.S. pledged to raise $100 billion per year for the fund by 2030. The fund hit $89.6 billion in 2021, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The U.S. also is launching an international Clean Energy Supply Chain initiative to expand and diversify the supply chains critical to the U.S. and global energy transition. Harris said the U.S. is going to provide $568 million for low-cost loans to expand clean energy manufacturing.
“The urgency of this moment is clear,” Harris said, according to a White House release. “We cannot afford to be incremental. We need transformative change and exponential impact. As nations, we must have the ambition that is necessary to meet this moment.”
The U.S. also joined more than 20 other nations in signing the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy by 2050, according to an announcement from the Department of Energy. The declaration commits signers to ensuring they operate nuclear facilities responsibly, with “the highest standards of safety, sustainability, security and non-proliferation, and that fuel waste is responsibly managed for the long term,” while mobilizing financing for new plants.
“We are not making the argument to anybody that [nuclear] is absolutely going to be the sweeping alternative to every other energy source — no, that’s not what brings us here,” said Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry, as reported in The New York Times. But, he said, “You can’t get to net-zero 2050 without some nuclear.”
The other major initiative from the U.S. on Dec. 2 was the release of the EPA’s final rule aimed at slashing the nation’s methane emissions 80% between 2024 and 2038..
Announced by EPA Administrator Michael Regan and White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, the new rule gives oil and gas companies two years to end routine flaring of natural gas from new oil wells and one year to phase in zero emissions standards for key equipment such as pumps and storage tanks. It requires close monitoring for leaks, while also opening the way for oil and gas companies to use new technologies, such as satellite monitoring and aerial surveys, to detect leaks.
The final rules were developed with feedback from nearly 1 million public comments EPA received on proposed regulations issued in 2021 and 2022, according to the agency announcement. Regan said the standards were developed “to advance American innovation and account for the industry’s leadership in accelerating methane technology.”
EPA also plans to enlist “third-party expertise” to find the large leaks, known as “super emitters,” which account for close to half of methane emissions from oil and gas.
Statements in the EPA announcement signaled broad support for the rule from industry and environmental groups.
Orlando Alvarez, chairman and president of bp America, said the final rule was “well designed” and would “help drive material methane emission reductions this decade and beyond.”
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, called the rule “a vital win for the climate and public health, dramatically reducing warming pollution and providing vital clean air protections to millions of Americans.”
COP28’s Two Narratives
The wave of new pledges and commitments comes as the conference faces the first Global Stocktake of how well the nations that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 have lived up to their commitments to reduce their GHG emissions to limit climate change to 1.5 C.
The outlook is not encouraging. The UN’s Emissions Gap report, released prior to the conference, said even if all countries were to meet their commitments, the world still would be headed for 2.5 to 2.9 C of warming by the end of the century.
Adding to the sense of urgency, the World Meteorological Organization rolled out its provisional State of the Climate report on the opening day of the conference, confirming that 2023 has been the hottest year on record, with ongoing increases in GHG emissions, record sea level rise and record low Antarctic sea ice.
Even before the opening of COP28, two narratives had emerged about how the world should respond to the challenges ahead and what official actions the conference might endorse.
The dominant narrative, advanced by al-Jaber, the oil and gas industry and other oil-producing countries, is that, along with more renewables and energy efficiency, new technologies — like carbon capture and storage — can mitigate the worst effects of the ongoing combustion of fossil fuels.
The alternative narrative, advanced by a range of environmental groups and some nations, envisions a global commitment to a full, fair, fast and well-funded phaseout of all fossil fuels. At yet another event Dec. 2, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced his country would be the 10th to join the call for a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty.
The first calls for such a treaty came from Pacific Island nations in 2015, according to the initiative’s website, and supporters now include a range of cities and environmental and other nonprofits. Colombia is the second oil-producing country to support the treaty; the first was the Pacific Island nation of Timor-Leste.
Petro acknowledged the paradox of a fossil fuel-dependent country supporting nonproliferation but argued that preventing the “omnicide” of the planet itself must be avoided, as reported in the Guardian. “There is no other formula, no other path. Everything else is an illusion,” he said.
The critical question now is whether any of the pledges and commitments being rolled out in Dubai will find their way into the final conference agreement. Wide support for a fossil fuel phaseout is unlikely, and even official sanction for a phasedown may be difficult or significantly watered down, as has occurred in the past.
Al-Jaber once again fueled controversy Dec. 3 when the Guardian reported that during a pre-COP interview, he said there is “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C.”
Responding to those comments, Kerry pivoted the argument, saying the focus for limiting climate change to 1.5 C must be on “a phasing out of unmitigated fossil fuel emissions,” as reported by CNBC.
At a press conference on Dec. 4, al-Jaber said his comments were misrepresented and taken out of context, according to the Guardian.
“I respect science in everything I do,” he said. “I have said over and over the phasedown and the phaseout of fossil fuel is inevitable. In fact, it is essential.”
