(Almost) Everything You Need to Know About the COP28 Climate Meeting
A Brief History of COPs
In the late 1980s, environmental concerns, including air and water pollution, deforestation, and the depletion of natural resources, were prominent in the United States, leading Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to prioritize environmental policy. Since then, environmental issues have been a recurring theme in the election campaigns of U.S. presidential nominees. In the past 40 years, almost all presidential candidates (Donald Trump excluded) and prime minister candidates across the world have never failed to tell us how much they care about the environment and our planet, at least during their election campaigns.
In a speech in Michigan in August 1988, George H.W. Bush declared that he wanted to be ‘the environmental president’, raising expectations for action on climate change. “Those who think we are powerless to do anything about the ‘greenhouse effect’ are forgetting about the White House effect. As President, I intend to do something about it,” he said. (Schneider, 1991), (George H. Bush, Environmental Policy Speech 1988, 1988)
In 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Clean Air Act, which required coal-fired power plants to scrub sulphur emissions before they exited the smokestacks. Between 1990 and 2004, sulphur emissions from coal-fired plants in the United States decreased by 36% despite a 25% increase in output. It was an environmentally success story, which, ironically, is now pilloried by most Republicans.
In 1992, the world leaders of 154 countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty aimed to establish a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change by limiting average global temperature increases and coping with the inevitable impacts of climate change. Specifically, Article 2 of the convention commits countries to stabilising “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
The UNFCCC acknowledged that human activities had substantially raised the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, which in turn enhanced the natural greenhouse effect, leading to global warming and adverse effects on natural ecosystems and humankind. The treaty urged all countries to collaborate extensively and engage in an effective and suitable international response, considering their common but varied responsibilities, respective capabilities, and social and economic conditions.
The Rio Summit laid the groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized nations before developing nations joined in. However, the protocol did not come into force until 2015, and the United States, the largest emitter at the time, did not ratify it.[1]
Two months after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, presidential candidate Bill Clinton chose Al Gore to be his running mate. Their victory in November gave the new vice president a powerful platform from which to resume his crusade against climate change. The Global Climate Change Action Plan, unveiled by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, aimed to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while promoting economic development. Gore’s signature could be read in every line of this action plan.
As Vice President, Al Gore played a crucial role in promoting global action on the climate crisis and helped to broker the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which was the first major international agreement on the climate crisis. President Bill Clinton did not submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification during his presidency due to a combination of domestic and international factors. One of the main reasons was the strong opposition in the Senate to the Protocol. The Clinton administration was aware that the Protocol would likely not be ratified by Congress, as the Senate had already voted 95 to 0 to approve the Byrd-Hagel resolution, which warned the president against signing a climate treaty that would either economically harm the U.S. or exempt developing countries from participating. (Hovi, Sprinz, & Bang, G., 2012) (Aschwanden, 2015)
The first United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) took place in Berlin, Germany, from 28 March to 7 April 1995. It expressed concerns about the capacity of countries to fulfil their commitments under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), the body that advises the COP on matters of science, technology, and methodology. In response, COP1 initiated the "Activities Implemented Jointly" (AIJ), marking the first collective action in the international climate response. The AIJ program, which started in 1995, was a pilot initiative evolving to encourage a cooperative international approach to tackling global warming. It ended in 2000 and has evolved into joint implementation under the Kyoto Protocol.
Other key COP moments include:
COP3: The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 was a pivotal moment in international climate action. The protocol set binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
COP15 in Copenhagen: (December 7–18, 2009) This conference had high expectations for a new global climate agreement. The conference did not result in a legally binding treaty; it laid however the groundwork for the Paris Agreement.
COP21 in Paris: (30 November – 12 December, 2015). The adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 was a landmark moment. It resulted in the adoption of the Paris Agreement, which aimed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016, after being signed by a record 175 parties on its first day of signature.
The Paris Agreement has been seen as a first step, and the expectation was that as time went on, countries would return with greater ambition to cut their emissions. However, most experts say that countries’ pledges are not ambitious enough and will not be enacted quickly enough to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. A new study led by James Hansen, a scientist who warned about climate change in the 1980s and has made significant contributions to the field of climatology, predicts that the world will reach 1.5°C of warming by the 2020s and 2°C by 2050, faster than expected.
Sadly, wrote James Hansen in an article in Boston Globe on 27 June 2018, “the principal follow-ups to Rio were the precatory Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement—wishful thinking, hoping that countries will make plans to reduce emissions and carry them out. In reality, most countries follow their self-interest, and global carbon emissions continue to climb.”
In just two days, delegates will convene again in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the UN Climate Change Conference COP28. The conference is seen as a critical opportunity for governments to construct a credible and ambitious deal to dramatically step up climate action and speed up the energy transition. But the continued subsidies to oil and gas and the fact that the sitting CEO of an oil company is the president of COP28 (Dr Sultan Al-Jaber is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)) are seen as evidence that their fossil fuel money continues to exert heavy influence at the highest levels of climate policy. Furthermore, the world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over. This poses a significant threat to humanity's future, as it would lock in greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the climate crisis.
Just recently, leaked briefing documents obtained by the BBC revealed that the UAE COP28 team is planning meetings to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations, such as China, Colombia, Germany, and Egypt. ‘The UAE team did not deny using COP28 meetings for business talks, and said "private meetings are private"’.
“The fox is guarding the hen house,” someone said to me. COP28, without trust, cannot deliver.
[1] The largest carbon dioxide emitters in 1992 were the United States, followed by China, Russia, Japan, and India.
Bibliography:
Aschwanden, C. (2015, December 4). A Lesson from Kyoto’s Failure: Don’t Let Congress Touch a Climate Deal FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-lesson-from-kyotos-failure-dont-let-congress-touch-a-climate-deal/
George H. Bush 1988 Environmental Policy Speech 1988 (1988). Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4777288/user-clip-george-bush-1988-environmental-policy-speech-1988
Hovi, , j., Sprinz, D. F., & Bang, G., G. (2012). Why the United States did not become a party to the Kyoto Protocol: German, Norwegian, and US perspectives European Journal of International Relations, 18(1), 129-150. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066110380964
Schneider, K. (1991, August 25). The environmental impact of President Bush. The New York Times
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