Thousands of people using the UK road network over the festive season will note that the internal combustion engine is still working overtime. Traffic jams aplenty but only a minority of the vehicles in them are powered by electricity. The same fossil fuel reliance will apply to all that heating and cooking over the holiday season. Of the 26.5 million homes in the UK, some 85% are still using gas – old world energy in a country and on a planet which has now pledged to transition away from fossil fuels.  

The horse-trading finale to the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) brought a collective sigh of relief from many of those present but a sceptical moan from large swathes of a wider audience who expected much more. ‘COP is meant to be the vehicle for solutions, but all it seems to do is recognise problems that the rest of the world identified years ago. It’s obvious to most people that limiting global warming meant reduced fossil fuel use, but only now do our leaders say this,’ commented Mike O’Sullivan, Lecturer at the University of Exeter.  

The fact that a solid commitment on fossil fuels found its way into the final COP28 agreement was praised as an achievement in itself by many and a cause for celebration by some. ‘It’s a brilliant turnaround from the text two days ago and the negotiators have pulled a rabbit out of the hat,’ was the immediate response of Piers Forster, Interim Chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. ‘This gives all 198 countries the mandate to go home and deliver strong domestic policies to affect the transformative change.’

Swallow that pill

A key divide remains between those countries which produce fossil fuels and those which don’t – but still rely on them to a greater or lesser extent. Giving up fossil dollars is a hard pill to swallow, certainly in the short term, for those in the former category, while for countries in the latter weaning themselves away from an often volatile, war-constrained fossil fuel market should make absolute sense.

Though not legally binding, the COP agreement is a public commitment to keep the planet on track for 1.5°C of warming, as agreed at the Paris COP in 2015. Fossil fuels have not exactly been given their marching orders, but they have been put on notice. The global stocktake which requires countries to report on these things notes that greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 43% by 2030 and by 60% by 2040 for there to be any chance of keeping within the 1.5°C range.

Inevitably, there is disappointment on the lack of commitment to phase out coal, the black pariah in a pecking order of polluting fossil fuels. The agreement to phase down unabated coal power won’t for the moment leave countries like India, China and Australia feeling the need for urgent action.  

China, for example, is responsible for over 25% of the world’s solar energy but the country still remains addicted to coal with nearly 70% of the world’s coal-fired generation.  Australia’s sprawling Ensham mine in Queensland, for example, is still producing 4.5mn tonnes of coal a year for power stations and without reduction and/or abatement will ultimately add an additional 100mn tonnes of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Turning around these polluting super tankers will take some doing.

Inevitably, there is disappointment on the lack of commitment to phase out coal, the black pariah in a pecking order of polluting fossil fuels. 

When the wind blows

But COP28 has kept the world on the road to meaningful transition, said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in his closing address at this year’s conference. ‘We needed a global green light signalling it is all systems go on renewables, climate justice and resilience,’ he said. ‘On this front COP28 delivered some genuine strides forward.’

For its part, the UK is clinging to a leadership role but only just. While the UK can boast notable success in offshore wind development, the latest auction round for offshore wind did not produce a single bidder because financial guarantees were deemed too low in the face of rising costs. With a steep rise in the cost of various materials, developers want the guarantee of higher returns for their commitment. The 115 countries who left the conference agreeing to triple renewables and double energy efficiency by 2030 must work hard to make the sums add up.        

‘Every single commitment – on finance, adaptation and mitigation – must bring us in line with a 1.5℃ world,’ said Stiell. ‘Countries must prepare and submit their first-ever biennial transparency reports by the end of next year. At UN Climate Change we will keep working to improve the process and help Parties go further, faster and fairer.’  

UK faces £50bn climate investment

While in the UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by nearly 50% since 1990 – though some of these were simply exported to other countries – and up to 40% of electricity now comes from renewable sources, targets are being missed and progress of late has been painfully slow.  

The litany of hope over delivery looks certain, for example, to include the target to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028. The energy efficiency of the UK’s housing stock is among the worst in Europe and renewing the country’s nuclear fleet still looks like an eye wateringly expensive pipe dream. The UK’s Climate Change Committee estimates that achieving net zero by 2050 will require an extra £50bn of investment by 2030 – one example of the grass roots reality behind those COP28 commitments.

Piers Forster remains optimistic that mechanisms such as the global stocktake can drive progress. ‘The stakes at this year’s conference were more significant than at most COPs,’ he says. ‘It was the first time that countries came together to publish the global stocktake – an accounting of how much progress countries are making towards the goals of the Paris agreement and where further action is needed.’

In the short to medium term at least, petroleum states such as Saudi Arabia and this year’s COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will continue to promote themselves as suppliers of low carbon energy. ‘The world will need the lowest-carbon barrels at the lowest costs,’ said Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of ADNOC, the UAE’s national oil and gas company who was also President of this year’s conference on behalf of the host country.

Commenting on his company’s plans to invest $150bn over seven years in oil and gas he said that ADNOC’s hydrocarbons are lower carbon because they are extracted efficiently and with less leakage than other sources.

The cost of carbon

The pollution pecking order of fossil is an argument that will keep rolling. While the conference agreed to phase-down unabated coal power, there was also agreement to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies – for example those that encourage wasteful consumption and help to distort the market. Diverting the trillions of dollars which subsidise fossil fuel production each year, and putting an implicit price on carbon emissions, would generate the vast amounts of cash needed to tackle the climate crisis said Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

The logic is that if you levy a tax on carbon at the right level you drive both energy efficiency and the search for alternative solutions. The problem is that new carbon taxes are unpopular and governments know this.

Also agreed at COP28 were various aspects of climate finance. The loss and damage fund was finally operationalised with commitments totalling more than $700mn to date. There was also new funding for the Green Climate Fund (for mitigation and adaptation) which now stands at $12.8bn from 31 countries with more contributions expected. This is still a long way short of a new goal starting from a baseline of $100bn a year, designed to help shape the national climate plans which need to be delivered by 2025.

Shortage of skills

The UK meanwhile is struggling to keep its own net zero agenda on track. Nitty gritty practicalities like training up more heat pump engineers would help in the context of a bigger picture which includes the urgent need for investment in the grid and fully clean electricity from wind, solar and nuclear by 2035. Nicola Riley, Director of Energy at the consultancy WSP, points out that in the face of a 50 GW target for offshore wind by 2050 (in the sea or in the system) this year will amount to only 1 GW in the water. What’s more, she says ‘The UK needs to upgrade its grid system and the skills requirement to deliver all these projects is immense.’

When the dust settles how will COP28 by judged? Pledges at a high level amount to the requirement for huge investment and the potential for massive disruption as the world seeks to move down from its current trajectory of 3°C of warming, which most scientists agree would be disastrous for the planet to the 1.5°C agreed in Paris.

Dr Friederike Otto of Imperial College London puts it bluntly. ‘The science of climate change has been clear for decades: we need to stop burning fossil fuels,’ he says. ‘A failure to phase out fossil fuels at COP28 puts several million more vulnerable people in the firing line of climate change…. a terrible legacy for COP28.’ As petrol and gas still rule the roost for so many developed world families this Christmas, the issue following COP28 and beyond is how you get there – and how fast. Azerbaijan, another petrostate and the controversial venue for COP29, must help provide the answers.