The release of the most recent Stocktake draft at COP28 on December 11, 2023 brought immediate pushback and protest from climate advocates and scientists and in one case, a twelve year old climate activist from India who stormed the stage during a plenary to call for an end to fossil fuels. One objection to the draft is that it significantly weakens the language calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels. In fact, the draft removed specific use of the word “phaseout” altogether.
In response to the criticism, COP President Sultan A-Jaber said in a plenary that “This process can respond to what the science is telling us, that it can deliver for the most vulnerable and can deliver for the most vulnerable, and keep 1.5°C within reach.”
For the outcome of this year’s COP to address those goals, the ultimate goal of any Stocktake text must include a phaseout of fossil fuels. The time for incrementalism is over. Radical action is required to limit warming to 1.5°C.
If this were a disaster movie, at least a disaster movie with a happy ending, this would be the moment that the politicians finally listened to the scientists and acted decisively to avert the destruction of the planet. Following the backlash to the release of the text yesterday, protests have intensified and negotiations have continued, mostly behind closed doors.
The technical report of the first Global Stocktake released in September warned that ambition reflected by current Nationally Determined Contributions is not currently high enough to reach the target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, which would require a phaseout of fossil fuels by 2050. Many hoped the technical report would serve as a wakeup call to the global community and that that urgency would be reflected in this year’s COP negotiations.
There are two big challenges to the call for fossil fuel phaseout. One is the practice of tying phaseout goals to Nationally Determined Contributions, whose ambition should be proportional to the size of each nation’s economy. This is not a call for altruism. This is acknowledgement of the fact that big GHG emitters like the US have been benefiting economically from fossil fuel use for over a century – and most of the carbon emitted from that economic activity is still in the atmosphere today. And as we have mentioned before, the impacts of that century of fossil fuel use are not felt here in the US as they are in other places, where sea-level rise and deadly heat pose an existential threat to habitability. It is a fundamental matter of justice that countries in this position lead the way in any phaseout.
A second big challenge to negotiations around a fossil fuel phaseout is the necessary tie between a phaseout and climate finance. For the global response to climate change to be successful in limiting warming to 1.5°C, a goal which must include a potential phaseout of fossil fuels, we need every party involved. The key to getting everyone on board is climate finance, which allows least developed countries to contribute to phaseout without compromising other important national priorities like adaptation and poverty eradication.
We are still waiting for the fruit of the ongoing negotiations of the language of the Global Stocktake, which were ongoing in various formal and informal ways for much of yesterday, Dubai time. One can hope that the negotiators can find a way to meet the urgency this moment requires. This past twenty-four hours has demonstrated the importance of engaged and committed observers who can hold the negotiators’ feet to the fire when it comes to the needed ambition in response to climate change.
Who better than people of faith to advocate for policies which promote care for the vulnerable, dismantling of the oppression which comes from dependence on fossil fuels, and self-sacrifice in service of the greater good? These ideals are the foundation of living in a beloved community where all can live in peace and dignity. These are the ideals which must be adopted by those negotiating the final text of the Global Stocktake. Climate change presents a global emergency which threatens the wellbeing of billions of people; all of creation will ultimately suffer from our lack of action on climate.
Our witness to the world should be one of radical compassion, radical love, and radical hope for a better future. As people of faith, we should be the loudest voices in the room calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels, the loudest and most passionate group arguing for an extravagant national contribution to the Loss and Damage Fund. We should not let up the pressure on our elected representatives until they agree to fight for just, equitable, and effective climate policy.