Tomato, tomahto: The grand illusion of progress

Hi friend,

Well, well, well.

In true soap opera style, there was a last-minute turn of events at COP28.

After three decades of climate talks, we finally have an agreement that mentions the words “fossil fuels” for the first time. But they only made a cameo appearance, appearing once in an 11,000-word document.

Surprisingly, it was Sultan Al Jaber, the president of COP28 and head of the UAE’s state oil company, that shoehorned the words into the final agreement after negotiations went into overtime.

But don’t crack the champagne just yet.

The agreement tiptoes around the idea of a fossil fuel phaseout. Big oil players, with Saudi Arabia leading the choir, made sure of that. They settled on a flimsy promise to maybe, sort of, kind of limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (although scientists agree this is practically impossible, even with a phaseout).

So, how will they do this? By transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems and tripling renewables by 2030.

Groundbreaking? Hardly. Is there catch? Plenty.

This “breakthrough” agreement is about as binding as a pinky promise. It’s riddled with loopholes and escape hatches big enough to drive an oil tanker through. Countries can basically pick and choose their climate change battles, and we all know how that usually goes: nowhere.

And the cherry on top? There’s nothing stopping countries from continuing their fossil fuel fiesta. New coal plants? Sure, why not. Methane? Of course. Didn’t you know that it’s crucial to the energy transition?

The oil bigwigs are, of course, over the moon. They’ve managed to skirt around any real sacrifice while keeping their oil wells pumping. They’re patting themselves on the back for supporting such an “historic” and “landmark” outcome. But these words are as empty as the promises they’re making.

Don’t get sucked into their PR spin machine. This isn’t a victory; it’s barely a step. It’s all rhetoric and hot air. We’ve just named the elephant in the room but haven’t asked it to leave the party. There’ll be more foot-dragging and can-kicking until we run out of road.

We need more than words. We need action, real commitment, and change. The pledges made at COP28 are just the start. The real work? That’s on us to keep the pressure on, to demand they walk the talk. Because if we wait for them, it’ll be too little, too late.

— Tarryn ✌️

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Other news out of COP28

The final COP28 agreement did have some good news:

• It committed to halting all deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, as well as the destruction of land and marine ecosystems, and

• aligned with a separate agreement to protect biodiversity that includes goals such as safeguarding 30% of the world’s land and seas.

🔋 25+ major global utilities and power companies have joined forces to advance renewables-ready grids and boost clean energy deployment through 2030. The Utilities for Net-Zero Alliance (UNEZA) aims to enhance global cooperation among the industry players within the power system value chain and promote the acceleration of renewables. It will be led by the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA).

😡 Donald Trump says he will renege on US$3 billion pledge to the Loss and Damage Fund if he wins the elections. Not only will he cancel all climate reparation agreements but he’ll also try to “claw back” payments already made by the Biden administration.

This week's climate and sustainability news worth noting

🇨🇦 Canada has cut its energy sector some slack from requirements that it cut emissions relative to other industries. Canada’s overall climate target calls for reductions, by 2030, of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels. The oil and gas industry, however, will only have to end up at 35% to 38% below 2019 levels by the same deadline. Companies that do not meet those reductions will be able to buy offsets from industries that have cut output. The federal government estimates that oil and gas companies will be able to increase production by 12% and still meet the emission targets.

💸 The UN Environment Programme’s Finance for Nature report has revealed that almost US$7 trillion (that’s a T) of public and private finance per year supports activities with a direct negative impact on nature (including tobacco production, oil and gas extraction and construction). That’s about 30 times the amount spent on nature-based solutions annually and equivalent to 7% of global GDP. 

🍞 The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization unveiled a three-year programme to radically transform land use and food systems to eliminate global hunger while aligning agriculture with the Paris Agreement. The roadmap outlines more than 120 actions and milestones to transform food production, including reducing methane emissions, carbon capture, and creating a global net-positive carbon sink.

🌳 Paris has planted a 478-tree micro-woodland in the busy square of Place de Catalogne. This forms part of a plan to cover half of the city with an urban forest to reduce summer heat, increase flood resilience, and reduce carbon emissions. The city has planted 63,000 trees since November 2020, and hopes to have added another 170,000 trees by 2026.

🌲 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest has decreased for the eighth consecutive month. In November, forest clearing was 51% less than last year. That said, deforestation has increased in the cerrado – a tropical savanna to the south and east of the Amazon. At COP28, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced a $250 billion proposal aimed at protecting the world’s tropical forests. The “Tropical Forests Forever” fund will disburse money to tropical countries that achieve set thresholds for limiting deforestation.

🤦🏻‍♀️ But then Brazil’s Congress approved a law that threatens Indigenous people’s rights to most of the land they inhabit or claim, potentially opening vast territories to deforestation, farming and mining. The new law requires that Indigenous people provide proof that they occupied their land in 1988, which many are unable to do.

🐟 A quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction, says the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The biggest threat is from pollution from fertilisers and pesticides in rivers and streams, followed by water extraction, overfishing, invasive species, and disease. The Union’s Red List has moved the Atlantic salmon from being considered a species of least concern to being classified as near threatened. 

👩🏻‍⚖️ 18 young people in California have taken the Environmental Protection Agency to court for failing to adequately protect children nationwide from environmental catastrophe.

🌀 Wild weather:

• 🌪️ Six people killed in tornadoes in Nashville.

• 🌨️ Snow and blizzards in China.

And in business news

🤥 Unilever is being investigated in the UK for potentially overstating how green some of its products are.

One small thing you can do

Help fast-track the energy transition.

Now that most countries have agreed to triple their uptake of renewable energy, we can all do our part to speed up the process.

In countries with lots of renewables, electricity is cheaper and cleaner when the sun shines and the wind blows. At night, when there’s no renewables in the grid (and because we can’t store enough for nighttime use), electricity is expensive and dirty.

So, get into the habit of using more energy when it’s sunny and/or windy, and use less energy at night.

Even if you live in a country like South Africa, where coal power dominates, you can still practice shifting your energy usage into the daytime, because one day renewables will be dominate there, too.

Because lots of little actions combined can add up to something remarkable.

I'll leave you on this happy note...

You spin me right round, baby 🦦

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