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As the European Union gears up for a tough fight at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, a top negotiator says the bloc is in a better position than a year ago, when it was accused of hypocrisy and backsliding for firing up coal power plants following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
While coal still plays a role in its energy mix, the EU has managed to deploy record amounts of green technology, helping reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. It has implemented the European Commission’s climate measures so successfully that it is on track to cut emissions at least 57% by 2030 from 1990 levels, exceeding its original target of 55%, said Teresa Ribera, Spain’s environmental transition minister.
In an interview with Bloomberg Green in Madrid, Ribera said the bloc will once again push for countries to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions and phase out all fossil fuels at this year’s summit. That language was dropped in the final agreement at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh last year in order for countries to reach a historical deal to develop a fund that compensates poor countries for losses and damages caused by climate change.
“Last year was a year of paralysis in terms of emissions commitments, and all efforts were focused on mechanisms that covered losses and damages,” Ribera said. “It was last year’s great frustration — the need for money is infinite but, if we don’t act on the cause that generates that need for money, it will remain immense.”
COP28, which kicks off at the end of November, will take place against the backdrop of conflicts in Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas, as well as the challenges of inflation, food and energy shortages and rising doubts about multilateralism as a tool to solve global problems.
These tensions are often not explicit at COP meetings, but are felt inside the negotiating rooms, said Ribera, a veteran climate diplomat and a key member of the EU’s negotiating team. Seasoned diplomats who have often known and faced each other for years aim to turn technical talks into a document that signals the way forward on climate policy across the planet. Achieving that requires an intense agenda over two weeks, with marathon meetings often lasting all night as the deadline approaches.
“Sometimes there’s a mood favorable to an agreement because everyone wants to reach it, and other times one feels there are tensions that make an agreement very hard,” said Ribera, who has attended more than 20 COP meetings so far. “I think this will be a complicated meeting — a very difficult, very complicated COP.”
While the EU team feels it is in a stronger position than it was in 2022, there are still weak spots. European companies including Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE have signed multi-decade contracts with liquefied natural gas producers to supply European nations. The bloc failed to agree on a date to end fossil fuel subsidies in a meeting earlier this month, and Sweden is set to miss its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2045.
The UK, the EU’s neighbor and the host of COP26 in 2021, is also weakening some of its climate policies. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a speech last month the country would roll back some green and clean-energy policies, but that it would not abandon its goal to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.
“The most unfortunate messages we have seen, including Sunak’s words, are around backtracking on measures there was a commitment on,” Ribera said.
For the upcoming COP to succeed, countries must admit their emissions are not aligned with the target set in Paris in 2015 to keep them at a level consistent with a global temperature increase close to 1.5 degrees Celsius at the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times, Ribera said. Current emissions levels put the planet on a path to an up to 3C increase, and there are indications that global emissions this year will increase again.
The final statement at COP28 must include the need to reduce emissions and also recognize COP meetings as the forum for multilateral climate conversations, she said. Past meetings have been criticized for being dominated by side events. Some countries have pushed back on the negotiating process, which is slow and, like all United Nations negotiations, ends up with bare minimum agreements to ensure support from all parties.
“COPs give us the opportunity to gather an increasingly large community,” she said. “But we need to keep setting goals and without them, there is no process. It becomes a trade show.”
The EU will also push countries to outline a path to reach peak fossil-fuel use. Additionally the bloc backs new targets to triple renewable power capacity globally to 11 terawatts by the end of the decade and to double the rate of energy efficiency improvements this decade, compared to the last.
Talks will also focus on securing funding for those most impacted by climate change. Last year’s headline agreement to set up a loss and damage fund looks increasingly vulnerable after negotiations over the fund’s details collapsed last week. To Ribera, it is essential to include oil and gas companies in the so-called “polluters pay principle,” in which developed nations are asked to compensate developing nations for the impacts of the climate-driven extreme weather events they helped cause.
But she acknowledges that securing such an agreement in Dubai is not a realistic hope. “The decisions we adopt at COP can incorporate the principle of exploring innovative financing mechanisms,” she said. “I don’t think we can leave Dubai with a decision that establishes a compulsory contribution from oil-producing nations or oil and gas companies — that’s very hard.”
Instead, companies could start with voluntary commitments to fund adaptation and clean-energy projects in developing nations suffering the impacts of global warming, she said. European oil and gas companies, which have invested billions in renewable projects, could lead the way. Developed nations and multi-lateral development banks won’t have enough to finance the recovery from disasters such as the rains that flooded a third of Pakistan last year or the rising seas that threaten the survival of small island nations.
“We are going through turbulences that have a direct impact on European societies,” Ribera said. “Despite the difficulties, despite having to add flexibility to some elements, we are aligned.”
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