COP28: The Good, the Bad and the Lacking.
By Charlotte Morton OBE, Chief Executive, World Biogas Association.
Having attended many COPs over the years, I cannot say I have ever returned home feeling optimistic about what was achieved. COP28 was no different – it still fundamentally failed to demonstrate a collective will to address the extreme climate and environmental emergency we are in. The conflict of interests of oil producing countries, including of course the UAE, which held the COP28 Presidency, and the failure of developed countries which have achieved their developed status from fossil energy, to contribute anywhere near the amount needed for the loss and damage fund don’t help, but even more urgent issues than climate change, such as the pollution of our rivers and oceans, are not even on the COP agenda.
Whilst some COP28 breakthroughs have been hailed as historic: the first ever global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels; an agreement on the framework for the Loss and Damage Fund; and a new array of international pledges spanning oil-and-gas company emissions and the tripling of renewables, this is simply nowhere near enough.
The world spent trillions on Covid-19, yet after years of negotiations, the Loss and Damage Fund can count on a mere $700 million to help climate-vulnerable countries. Unbelievably the IMF reported that fossil-fuel subsidies surged to a record $7 trillion last year as governments supported consumers and businesses during the global rise in energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic recovery from the pandemic.
At least COP28 did focus on the potent climate pollutant, methane. 86 times more potent than CO2 in its first twenty years in the atmosphere, methane can buy us time in the fight against climate change. I was invited to join the COP28 Methane Summit on 2nd December and so witnessed Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE President of COP28, John Kerry, and Xie Zhenhua, respectively USA and China’s Special Envoys for Climate, make a raft of new announcements on methane action. 50 companies, representing over 40% of global oil production, committed to end routine flaring and to “zero-out” methane emissions by 2030 and a “methane finance sprint”, first announced earlier this year by US President Biden, was also mentioned with more than $1bn in new grant funding for methane reduction across all sectors. The hosts of the Methane Summit also called for countries to submit their next round of national climate plans and to ensure they are economy-wide and cover all greenhouse gases.
Funding to mitigate methane emissions is finally becoming available. At COP28, I had bilateral meetings with all the key climate funds including the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), all of whom are looking at methane action. The majority already appreciated the key role of the biogas sector in preventing methane emissions, from rotting organic wastes such as wastewater, municipal solid waste, and agricultural wastes (e.g. manures and slurries, agricultural residues), and also the enormous value the biogas industry can deliver by recycling these wastes into multiple forms of renewable energy, biofertilisers, biogenic CO2 and many other valuable bioproducts.
As always, I stressed the critical importance of recycling the 105bn tonnes of organic wastes humans generate every year not only in the many bilateral meetings we had but also in the official side event we hosted in the Blue Zone of COP28. With Martina Otto, Head of Secretariat of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), opening the panel discussion, and alongside speakers from the Mexican and Pakistani Governments, the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) and GHD, I highlighted the biogas sector’s ability to deliver close to half of the Global Methane Pledge, a commitment by over 150 countries to cut global methane emissions by 30% against 2020 levels by 2030.
Waste was also on the COP agenda for the first time, with a Waste and Resources Pavilion, the launch of the Waste to Zero Initiative and many side events demonstrating that this not so glamorous sector is essential if we want to keep 1.5°C warming limit in reach.
For every small win, however, the shortcomings are terrifying. As the evidence produced by the GOES Institute in Scotland highlights, the rate of pollution of our oceans is a far more urgent issue than Climate Change and will have dire consequences for our planet if not addressed NOW, yet we are still not focusing on it.
Global issues need global solutions, but these Conferences of the Parties are only delivering incremental change while maintaining the status quo. Disruptive and radical action is needed NOW to stop the worst consequences of climate change and ecosystem destruction.
What is so frustrating is that solutions exist: we have the technologies to transition away from fossil fuels, we know how to manage waste and prevent pollution, we have the science that tells us how we can use Nature to save our ecosystems. We only lack the political, corporate and individual will. Even more frustrating is that taking the necessary action is a massively positive economic story – the biogas industry alone will create 10-15 million new green jobs and a supply chain worth trillions.
The global reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrates that the political will to deliver drastic action can happen. But when will sufficient numbers of us wake up to demand that our governments take the actions necessary to stop pollution, environmental and climate destruction, and protect the natural world – our home – on which humanity depends?
