How should we evaluate the results of the climate conference in Dubai? In the past few days, hardly an hour went by without me receiving an email from researchers, think tanks and companies about this. The experts don’t really agree: Some speak of an important signal that calls for a move away from fossil fuels. “We can build on this in the future,” says Jan Steckel from the Climate Research Institute of the Mercator Foundation. At the same time, many complain that it is unclear how the goal of climate neutrality is to be achieved. The passage in question is weak and leaves many loopholes. “Not historical, just the bare essentials,” says Niklas Höhne, head of the New Climate Institute organization.
Sometimes looking back helps to see the present more clearly. The first UN climate conference took place 28 years ago. But it is only in the last two years that these forums have been seriously discussing fossil fuels – even though it has always been clear that burning them is the main cause of global warming. A change only became apparent at COP26 in Glasgow, when a final declaration called for a reduction in coal use. Even the Paris climate agreement of 2015 does not mention “fossil fuels” once in its 60 pages. All of this is akin to doctors holding regular conferences on lung cancer for a quarter of a century – without ever naming smoking as the cause.
Seen this way, climate diplomacy has only just left this Potemkin village. “Now the white elephant has come to the table, people are talking about coal, oil and gas,” says climate economist Ottmar Edenhofer in an interview with SZ. This is “a huge step forward”.
Something else has come into play at this COP: the fund for “damage and losses” from the climate crisis. Rich countries should pay into this fund so that poor countries can be compensated for at least some of the damage caused by climate change. You can find out what difference this can make in this report by Michael Bauchmüller. He was in Dubai with a negotiator from Guinea. The country is ranked 182 out of 191 on the UN’s Human Development Index, and its residents are struggling to survive as a result of global warming.
If you want to look further back than a quarter of a century, I recommend this interview with Michael Mann, he researches the climate history of the planet. Spoiler: There was already a similar level of CO₂ in the atmosphere on Earth – three million years ago. Things looked a little different back then than they do today.
(This text comes from the weekly Newsletter Climate Friday you here free of charge can order.)