Climate summit kicks off in Dubai with low expectations amid global instability

(CN) — An annual high-stakes United Nations climate change summit kicked off Thursday in oil-rich United Arab Emirates, but hopes for major breakthroughs were low as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East and even wealthy nations scale back climate ambitions amid worsening economic conditions.

The summit's credibility also suffered a blow after the heads of the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters — U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping — skipped the event.

More than 60,000 delegates arrived in Dubai for the U.N.'s yearly climate conference — this one is known as COP28. At these summits, some 198 countries come together to push forward pledges and plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and pay for the consequences of climate change.

For weeks, a mood of skepticism has hung over the Dubai summit as the UAE has fended off accusations of greenwashing and conflicts of interest. For example, fake social media accounts were found defending Dubai as a host for the climate conference.

The decision to name Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the UAE's industry minister, as the conference president raised eyebrows because he is also the head of ADNOC, the country's national oil company.

In a major embarrassment, he was forced to rebuff news reports in recent days showing leaked documents suggested his country intended to use the conference to ink fossil fuel-related business deals with several countries.

Pressure on world leaders to do more to tackle climate change is at an all-time high with the planet on track to record its hottest year ever and a warming planet being blamed for more and more disasters. This year, many regions were hit by devastating flooding, heat waves, storms, drought and wildfires.

Adding to the gloomy mood is growing backlash to climate action around the world. For example, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently backtracked on climate goals, Dutch voters have voted in droves for anti-green parties in recent elections and Argentinians just elected Javier Milei, a libertarian who rejects scientific evidence of human-caused climate change as a “socialist agenda.”

Despite low expectations, progress at the Dubai summit was likely on many fronts.

Already Thursday, several rich countries, led by the UAE and Germany, announced large payments into a fund under the World Bank to pay for damages caused by climate change in poorer nations.

Delegates agreed to set up the fund at last year's summit in Egypt. The goal is to disburse $100 billion by 2030.

Creating the fund, commonly referred to as the “loss and damage fund,” has been a point of friction for years, with poorer countries growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of action to help them deal with climate change.

Developing nations are suffering severe consequences from climate change but feel deeply wronged because their contribution to the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere is negligible.

On Thursday, the UAE and Germany each pledged $100 million toward the damages fund; the United Kingdom $75 million; and the United States $17.5 million. In all, countries announced $430 million in funding.

Still, such amounts are paltry compared to the needs, which include helping poorer nations move away from fossil fuels as they develop their economies.

Experts believe it will take up to $4 trillion over several decades to pay for the steps necessary to rein in global warming and avoid catastrophic scenarios in the future. For comparison, in today's dollars the Apollo space program cost about $220 billion to get humans onto the moon.

For now, the goal is to find $1 trillion to decarbonize emerging economies, but bitter disagreements between developed and developing countries over who is to blame for global warming and who should pay have stymied efforts to raise the enormous sums.

In 2009, wealthy nations agreed to funnel $100 billion a year toward developing nations by 2020, but they have fallen short of that goal.

Since industrialization began in the 1850s, about 2,500 gigatons of carbon dioxide have been emitted into the atmosphere, most of that in the last 40 years.

Scientists say the cumulative amount of C02 in the atmosphere needs to be kept below 2,900 gigatons to meet the target of not allowing global temperatures to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times. Already, the planet is about 1.2 C (2.16 F) warmer than the pre-industrial era and scientists warn it could shoot past 2 C (3.6 F).

But the 1.5 C goal seems nearly impossible to achieve because it would require global emissions to fall by 43% by 2030, nearly a 10% reduction each year. For comparison, global emissions fell by 6% in 2020 during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Of the 2,900 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere, the U.S. is responsible for about 25% and Europe about 22%. China is linked to nearly 15% of the total emissions and has become the biggest polluter, with annual emissions more than double America’s and over one-quarter of the global total.

India and Brazil, two of the world's biggest polluters, have contributed 3% and 1%, respectively. The entire African continent is responsible for less than 3% of historical emissions.

At this summit, delegates are expected to haggle over wording about whether fossil fuels should be “phased down” or “phased out” by 2050. China and many developing countries say it is unrealistic for their economies to phase out fossil fuels by then.

With UAE as the host, there is hope progress can be made on getting the oil industry, and in particular national oil companies, to agree on new measures to reduce emissions.

There is also a chance countries will pledge to triple renewable energy capacity.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau

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