The absence of Joe Biden, the president of the United States, from COP28 has puzzled many climate activists and analysts, because the Democrat entered the White House in 2021 with a clear speech supporting the fight against climate change. This, together with the new licenses to extract more oil in its territory, has led to a questioning of this country’s commitment to its green agenda. Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, has attended the climate summit being held in Dubai to try to clear up any doubts that she may have about her Administration. And she has announced from this city in the United Arab Emirates an important contribution to the United Nations Green Fund: 3 billion dollars.
This fund is an instrument linked to the negotiations that have been held under the UN umbrella for three decades to combat climate change. Its donors are the richest countries and the recipients are developing nations. It is intended for these countries to be able to cut their emissions – for example, by promoting renewable energy projects – or so that they can adapt to the negative effects of climate change – for example, by protecting homes, crops or implementing warning systems for meteorological risks. —.
The last major announcement of a contribution to this fund by the United States dates back to 2014, during the Barack Obama Administration. The Democrat already had problems for that promise to fully materialize as he did not have a majority in his country’s Senate.
Harris, in his speech before the COP28 plenary session this Saturday, defended the measures that his Government is developing, such as the massive installation of solar panels and the development of electric vehicles. “We are reducing our emissions.” But he has also warned of leaders who “deny climate science,” delay “action” against warming or spread misinformation, something that has led many to think of Republican Donald Trump. In addition, he has criticized large companies that use ecoposturing to hide their lack of measures to reduce emissions.
That $3 billion item announced by Harris, however, is not intended for the new loss and damage fund that has already been established at this Dubai summit. The Green Fund, to which the millions announced by the US will go, is a financing instrument focused on actions to reduce gases or prepare for the effects of climate change. However, the new loss and damage instrument now created is to compensate the most vulnerable nations for the impacts that global warming has already caused them or will cause them. In this last case, the United States has only committed to providing 17 million dollars for its activation.
The issue of compensation is much more slippery in international negotiations on climate change. The United States is primarily responsible for this crisis. Together with the European Union, it accumulates a third of all the carbon dioxide that humanity has expelled since 1850, when the massive burning of fossil fuels began. For this reason, the United States has always resisted opening the door to compensation for global warming, which can reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
Information is the first tool against climate change. Subscribe to it.
Subscribe
Triple renewables
In any case, the announcement made by Harris seeks to restore confidence in the negotiations of many developing countries, which have seen how for years the richest nations have also been failing to fulfill their financing promises. And in those already taking place in Dubai, which will last until December 12, what is sought now is to establish a route for the elimination of greenhouse gases so that warming remains within safe limits. .
The main emitting sector is the energy sector and how to move this sector away from fossil fuels constitutes one of the most important battles of this summit. On the one hand, an express commitment is sought so that from this COP28 an explicit call comes out so that by the end of this decade the power of renewable energy in the world has tripled, and for energy efficiency to double. 117 countries have already joined a declaration in that sense promoted by the EU, which was officially presented this Saturday at COP28. The text is supported, in addition to the Twenty-seven European countries, by other governments with significant weight such as the United States, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Chile, and Colombia. the United Kingdom and Canada.
The declaration also includes a reference to increasing energy efficiency (which means reducing consumption) and the need to “drive the global movement towards fossil fuel-free energy systems without diminishing” (that expression refers to carbon capture systems). emissions before they end up in the atmosphere, for example). Although the declaration has strong support, the signatories do not include China, India and Saudi Arabia, which may portend tough negotiations in the coming days. The greatest dissent is not in the objective of tripling renewables, it is in the call to progressively abandon all fossil fuels at this summit.
Oil companies
The United Arab Emirates, which has signed the declaration promoted by the EU, is one of the largest oil and gas producing countries in the world, which has generated significant controversy by hosting this climate conference. This country, as host, is in charge of directing the negotiations. The COP28 presidency, held by energy minister Sultan al Jaber (who is also the CEO of his country’s public hydrocarbon company, ANOC), has insisted that the fight against climate change must also include with the fossil fuel sector. In fact, this Saturday it presented an initiative together with Saudi Arabia in that sense: a commitment by 50 large oil and gas companies, which represent more than 40% of global crude oil production, to reduce their greenhouse emissions, those of carbon dioxide and methane.
The signatories’ commitment is to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions in their operations by 2050 at the latest. Also considerably reduce its methane emissions, in addition to ending the routine burning of this gas that is carried out in some farms. What for the COP presidency is “important progress” for environmental organizations and climate activists is nothing more than greenwashing or eco-posturing.
More than 300 organizations have made public a letter in which they criticize this initiative for focusing only on the operational phase and not committing its signatories to reducing oil and gas production. As they explain, the bulk of the emissions are not generated in the operations phase. It is later, when these fossil fuels are burned, that between 80% and 90% of the gases are expelled. Therefore, the only solution is to reduce production, they argue.
But it is not only fossil fuels that are talked about in these quotes. At all the summits, the nuclear energy industry tries to stand out and claim itself as a source that generates energy without direct emissions. Although at this COP it is not on the table to make any mention of nuclear energy in the balance that will emerge from the conference, on the margins of the summits this industry organizes events. In this context, 21 countries – including the US, France, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and Ukraine – have committed to tripling their nuclear power between now and 2050 as a way to also contribute to the fight against climate change. .
You can follow CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Kamala #Harris #announces #contribute #billion #international #climate #finance