The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a yearly international climate summit. During COPs, global leaders assemble to collaboratively address climate change challenges. The Convention boasts participation from all over the world, with 198 Parties, comprising 197 countries and the European Union. COPs are the world’s highest decision-making forums on climate issues, gathering leaders all over the world to decide the future of our planet. This year, COP28 in Dubai expects to host over 70,000 people across the world leaders, civil society actors, activists, lobby and advocacy groups. Similarly to the last year at COP27 in Egypt, this year COP28 also hosts an enormous number of fossil fuel lobbyists whose voices CAN Europe and other civil society actors aim to counter. The UN has announced that at COP28, fossil fuel lobbyists need to identify themselves as such but there is still a long way to go in preventing the fossil fuel industry profiting on the destruction of our planet to have a strong say on the decisions COP will take and the fate of our planet. The controversial President for COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, who is the managing director of the UAE’s national oil company Adnoc, has said he believes fossil fuel industries must be in key climate talks.

CAN Europe participates in COP28 with a broad delegation of experts, including director Chiara Martinelli, head of climate Klaus Rohrig, international climate policy coordinator Sven Harmeling, civil society participation expert Samuel Martin-Sosa, energy transition expert Eli̇f Cansu İlhan, youth activists Margarita Delgado and Klara König as well as communications experts Daniela Pichler and Seden Anlar. On top of that, more than 50 CAN Europe member organisations with more than 80 delegates are present in Dubai, advocating for the best possible outcome of COP28.

Follow CAN Europe on Twitter and LinkedIn to get the latest updates directly from COP28 in Dubai.

The Global Stocktake (GST), a crucial procedure under the Paris Agreement, is our planet’s five-year climate health check, assessing global progress in curbing temperature rise to maintain it below 1.5ºC. It means looking at everything related to where the world stands on climate action and support, identifying the gaps, and working together to agree on solutions and pathways to 2030 and beyond. 

The first-ever Global Stocktake is set to conclude at COP28, and that’s why it should be the centrepiece of the negotiations. The Stocktake decision needs to encourage states to scale up their climate ambitions, including addressing the historical responsibilities of Global North and global injustice.

We need a decision for a full, global phaseout of fossil fuels. CAN Europe together with the global climate movement will be making noise on this under hashtag #EndFossilFuels. 

Just recently, we got a foretaste of the likely scenario around the fossil fuel phaseout at the European Union. The debate was whether to call the phaseout full or unabated. Unfortunately, the EU agreed in their COP28 position to call for a global phaseout for unabated fossil fuels. 

Calling for the phaseout of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels rather than a full phaseout of all fossil fuels leaves open loopholes to continue using fossil fuels if certain measures are taken to reduce the intensity of their greenhouse gas emissions. However, currently, there is no clear definition of abatement, and the technologies that are being promoted for abatement, such as carbon capture and storage, are yet unproven at the scale that would be needed to have a significant impact. 

More positively the EU has highlighted the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossils well ahead of 2050. EU Member States also made it clear that there is no role for CCS in the energy sector and the focus should be on moving away from fossil fuel use. This is an important qualification for how the term ‘unabated’ should be interpreted, closing significant loopholes.

The EU has further clarified its position at COP28 which limits the role of abatement technologies by stating that at COP28 global targets on renewables and energy efficiency should go hand in hand with the phase-out of fossil fuel energy production and consumption.

However at the Pre-COP end of October, several EU countries signed up to the Higher Ambition Coalition statement on a fossil fuel phase-out, but others declined to do so, which is very worrying.

At COP28, all parties should agree to a rapid, just and equitable global phase-out of fossil fuels in all sectors in line with the 1.5C temperature limit by 2050 at the latest, without abatements. For the EU, this means coal must be phased out no later than 2030, fossil gas no later than 2035 and oil at the latest by 2040. 

As part of the much-needed, just global energy transition, the EU must furthermore back up its verbal support for developing countries with strong financial commitments to accelerate the shift to a people-centred, fully renewable energy system.

Complementing this, it will be important to advance the Mitigation Work Programme, agree on its next steps for 2024, and use its ministerial meeting to highlight the need for fossil fuel phaseout, and increased investments and financial support for mitigation in developing countries.

Following the historic decision at COP27 to establish new funding arrangements for loss and damage, a Transitional Committee drew up recommendations for consideration and adoption at COP28. While developing these, developed countries pressured developing countries to accept a set of recommendations that do not adhere to basic principles of climate justice and equity.

The current proposal on the table includes several issues. Firstly, the fundamental problem is that there is no obligation for developed countries to contribute to the fund. As per the proposal, the World Bank, an undemocratic institution primarily led by developing countries, is set to be the interim host for the fund, but there is no clear strategy for its eventual transition. To ensure the fund delivers on climate justice it should be established firmly under the UNFCCC with its own legal personality; and it should be answerable to the parties of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and their principles. There is no reference to the scale of funding required to address loss and damage adequately nor mention of human rights. Apart from government contributions, there is no clarity on the type of new sources of finance that are needed in the longer term to scale up the fund’s capitalisation. To tackle this, we need equitably assessed taxes and levies to make polluters pay.

However, this is now the proposal on the table and it is likely that parties will make a decision to support the recommendations in the first week of the COP. 

EU Member States and the European Commission should be ready to make significant multi-year pledges at a scale of billions of USD to the new Loss and Damage fund at COP28. Finance should be new and additional public funding in the form of grants, aligned with the Polluter Pays Principle.

The current international financial architecture is not fit to address the climate crisis. Further, the collective failure of developed countries on climate finance commitments to developing countries is having a devastating impact on underrepresented people, increasing inequalities and poverty, as well as weakening global climate action on mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, and hindering progress on the negotiations as a whole.

Developed countries have not delivered on the $100 billion annual climate finance commitment for 2020-25 made more than a decade ago, and concerns remain about it being reached in 2023 even using contributor-led methodologies which inflate figures. The EU announced ahead of COP28 its total climate finance to developing countries in 2022: this included EUR 28.5 billion in public climate finance and EUR 11.9 billion mobilised private finance. Compared to 2021 this indicates a significant increase of EUR 5.64 (24%) in public finance alone. But when public budgets are being limited and overstretched, huge concerns about where climate finance is coming from and that it is taking an even greater share of development finance budgets. The share of grants and adaptation finance has remained roughly the same from 2021, while the EU has said it wants to be at forefront of increasing and improving adaptation finance, so much more action is needed on this.

COP28 needs to ensure that developed countries keep their promises to developing countries. To ensure the collective commitment is met, the EU should scale up new and additional climate finance, in the form of grants and highly concessional finance. The EU should also ensure it delivers at least 50% of its contribution to that commitment as adaptation finance, prioritising grants.