The COP28 Preparatory Conference: Bonn’s Fiasco
Joao Gabriel Diniz Santos
PMO Manager @ New Fortress Energy | Master in Project Management
Negotiators from 196 countries were gathered until last week – June 15th, at the Bonn climate summit, as a preparatory meeting for COP28, which will happen at the end of this year in Dubai. It was almost categorized as a complete catastrophe.
The planet has plenty of time to spare while the real world is on fire, with heat waves in Mexico, wildfires across Canada, and clouds of smoke embracing New York into a nightmare, just like a movie set. At the same time, northern Europe is already facing drought and heat before summer even starts.
With all this happening, SB28 finished without a reasonable and proper work agenda. A complete failure was avoided, but the conference sent a wrong signal to the Dubai conference later this year.
The next COP will show the world that it will be more a political event with a massive presence of oil industry barons than leaders with a real climate agenda.
The COP28 chairperson – a CEO of an oil Dubai enterprise, passed through Bonn last week and did nothing to untie the negotiation gridlock. COP28 is, therefore, surrounded by distrust and uncertainty.
After all, what happened there during SB58, and what was forwarded to avoid climate disasters and gradually reverse the momentum of the climate crisis?
Politics overwhelmed the technical discussion and agenda, raising tensions not usually seen in preparatory meetings and casting doubts on the future of the multilateral work meetings expected to happen at COP28.
The main disagreement was centered on the Mitigation Work Program (MWP) set up during COP26 Glasgow Summit, a CO2eq emissions reduction agenda. The discussion broke out when EU countries requested to insert the MWP debate in the COP28 agenda. The G77 countries (a group of 134 emerging or developing nations) refused to accept the inclusion of this topic since the rich or developed nations didn't ever commit to putting USD100Bi annually funding, beginning in 2009 (USD300Bi since 2020) to help developing countries execute the CO2eq emissions-cutting plan.
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The tug of war ended after both sides agreed to withdraw MWP and rich country financing topics from the COP28 agenda.
The aftermath balance is almost zero. No significant issues will be discussed by the end of 2023.
Moreover, a recent study in Science magazine showed that most countries' climate pledges to neutralize their emissions by 2050 need to be more credible.
Even if their plan were credible and implemented on time, this would lead the planet to a warming of 2.4°C to 1.7°C above the pre-industrial average temperature.
Despite that, only some things were lost. UK, New Zealand, and the EU presented a credible plan for neutralizing their emissions by 2050.
Even though the average temperature will continue to rise dangerously above the pre-industrial level, especially this year, with the El Ni?o phenomenon heating the Pacific waters, this event alone will likely add 0,1°C e 0,2°C to global temperature rise.
To save the next COP gathering in Dubai, we need to think globally and act locally. Without reaching a consensus each year, humankind will be more distant from solving the climate crisis.