There were high expectations that the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, would tackle a range of issues critical to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. There were significant developments, but also numerous outstanding issues that still need to be resolved in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
The post-COP28 headlines focused on the future role of fossil fuels. Some nations called for a “phase down” or a “phase out” of fossil fuels. Other nations called for a focus on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and other technologies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel–focused industrial sectors. Compromise language was agreed to that calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, to achieve net zero by 2050. The UAE Consensus language is a significant development, given it is the first time an international agreement on climate change addressed the future of fossil fuels.
Notably, the COP28 agreement is not legally binding. What that means is that it will be up to each country to determine how to incorporate, if at all, the COP28 agreement’s call to transition away from fossil fuels. In the United States, this language may be cited to support federal and state climate change-focused regulatory activities and private-sector actions. Practically, U.S. oil and gas production is at historically high levels, and key geopolitical allies are spending billions on new oil and gas infrastructure, in part to support utilization of U.S.-supplied fossil fuels. The meaning and import of the UAE Consensus will likely be the focus of the COP process and nation-specific implementation moving forward.
Other takeaways include calls for tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030. However, renewable energy faces an increasing number of challenges, including distribution bottlenecks, environmental permitting timelines, third-party litigation, and interest rates, among other hurdles. The scaling of renewable energy projects and climate mitigation technologies is not possible without a significant increase in financing, particularly for transition efforts in developing economies. Consequently, the COP28 agreement calls on multilateral development banks and other financial institutions to scale up investments in climate action and increase the scale of climate finance, while also calling for the reform of these multilateral development banks to accelerate such expansion.
A consensus position at COP28 was the call for the acceleration of zero- and low-emission technologies, including abatement and removal technologies such as CCUS and low-carbon hydrogen production. There is largely consensus at the international, national, and subnational levels on their importance to meet net-zero goals, including states as politically divergent as California and Texas. In the United States, in part due to the Inflation Reduction Act, there are significant investment and development into CCUS, hydrogen, and related infrastructure projects.
The COP moves to Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year, with plenty of remaining issues to resolve, particularly the role of fossil fuels and ways to finance the energy transition. Given that there is increasing public pressure on governments to address climate change and that in 2025 nations are expected to establish updated Nationally Determined Contributions, 2024 promises to be an eventful year in the advancement of the issues central to global climate change and the energy transition.
