It's dawn in Dubai and the Expo2020 metro stop is practically empty. This Tuesday, as planned by the presidency of Sultan Al-Jaber, we would have to begin removing posters and packing our bags. The reality is “last night the negotiations ended at three in the morning,” say sources from the Spanish delegation present in Dubai. In the halls of the pavilions, faces accumulate fatigue, dark circles and tension. “Everything is on the table,” they say. “It has already been confirmed to us that the negotiations are going to be extended, probably until the 14th,” add other sources.
As this newspaper has learned, some members of the COP28 organization team have received a message asking them to extend their work until Thursday the 14th. “I have my flight for Friday,” said Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate Action. “We are waiting for the presidency to present a new text after the harsh and widespread criticism of the draft,” say Spanish sources. “Disappointing”, “disastrous”, “unacceptable” were some of the words heard this Monday after receiving Al-Yáber's proposal on the new Global Balance that must govern the decarbonization of world economies for the coming years. “It does not reflect science,” warn environmental organizations.
The great opposition came from the Pacific states. “We cannot support a text that is our death certificate,” warned Cedric Schuster of Samoa, president of the Alliance of Small Island States. “We cannot sign a text that does not contain strong commitments on the phasing out of fossil fuels,” he added.
The Emirati presidency proposes in its draft, a text ready to approve, that states, among other options, can reduce fossil production, but at no time did it ask for a commitment to abandonment, not even the reduction of gas, oil and coal production .
More forceful was Ireland's Environment Minister, Eamon Ryan, who assured RTE, the Irish public broadcaster, that “Europe will abandon climate talks if the draft of the COP28 agreement is not modified.” It is not the first time that the community bloc makes this threat, last year in Sharm el-Seij (Egypt) Frans Timmermans, now former Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal, pointed out the same thing in the face of the inaction of the presidency Egyptian in the last hours of COP27.
However, Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate Action, and Teresa Ribera, third vice president of the Government and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, were more restrained. “Everything is on the table and we have hours and days ahead of us,” they noted last night. “We are not going to leave here without the clear messages that the world needs,” said Ribera.
Throughout today, after a break for the negotiators, a new draft is expected that includes updates to
The low profile of the United States and China
The Spanish language is wise and has phrases that are a faithful reflection of reality. “Even the tail, everything is bull” or “he who remains silent grants.” In the last few hours, small island states have presented their opposition to the text, environmental groups have demonstrated, Europe has shown its disappointment with the proposal, Brazil does not accept it, but neither the United States, nor China, nor Saudi Arabia have uttered a single word on article 39 of the draft World Review.
Saudi Arabia has opposed saying goodbye to fossil fuels from day one, because “the Paris Agreement talks about reducing emissions, not fuels specifically,” they constantly argue. The Arab country is one of the main oil exporters on the planet.
However, the silence of the two giants of the planet is more striking: China and the United States; United States and China. Both account for greenhouse gas emissions and, especially, Beijing is a large consumer of coal, one of the most polluting. The last known statement dates back to the weekend, before this draft. “The agreement on fossil fuels is not perfect, but it is key to the success of COP28,” a Chinese emissary told Reuters, but did not specify anything about the end of these fuels.
For his part, John Kerry, leading the US delegation, stated that “this is the last COP in which we will have the opportunity to keep 1.5 degrees alive.” «I don't think anyone here wants to be associated with failure to fulfill this responsibility. “Historically, not many people in public life are asked to make life or death decisions.”
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