COP28: Result indicates challenging route to COP in Belém – 13/12/2023 – Environment

After two weeks of intense negotiations and a lot of pressure from civil society and oil nations, COP28 came to an end this Wednesday morning (13), in Dubai. Even two years before COP30, the Brazilian edition of the UN (United Nations) climate conference, the results defined now have a direct impact on the summit that should be held in Belém in 2025.

The main objective of this COP in the United Arab Emirates was to deliver a general assessment of climate actions taken to date, which will be used to update countries’ climate goals (known as NDCs, an acronym in English for nationally determined contributions).

According to the Paris Agreement, this will have to be done by 2025, when Brazil will host the event. But there are pending issues that could complicate the process, such as the uncertainty about how developed countries will support emerging nations in the energy transition.

For Leandro Ramos, program director at Greenpeace Brazil, this is a central gap that will need to be addressed. “How do we ensure that developed countries, which contributed most to the climate crisis, and also the sectors most responsible for the climate crisis, make this transition viable?”, he asks.

The final text of COP28 proposes for the first time that countries make a transition from fossil fuels, which are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, to other energy sources.

It also includes the firmer adoption of the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C (instead of 2°C), a scenario that would avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

This point was one of the main ones defended by Brazilian diplomats, who went to Dubai with the intention of being the “champion of 1.5°C” so that other countries can adopt this parameter when updating their NDCs. This should be reflected in the adoption of bolder goals, defining the size of the success of the Brazilian COP.

Thus, Brazil must continue to raise the 1.5°C flag, but it will also have to work to ensure that other nations do not ignore or undermine this objective.

“The overall balance indicated that what we have achieved so far was not enough [para conter a crise climática] and we work so that we leave here with the foundations to make this sufficiency possible. One very important thing was the alignment in relation to the [meta de] 1.5°C”, said the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, at the end of the conference.

“There will no longer be any way to simply quibble. Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and provide the means for actions to take place”, he also said.

Stela Herschmann, climate policy specialist at the Climate Observatory, explains the importance of the national goals to be presented at COP30, which marks ten years of the Paris Agreement.

“Emissions will have to fall by 60% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels. So, the ambition that we need to achieve in Belém is quite big and involves fossil fuels.”

Investments in expanding oil and gas exploration are one of the controversial points in relation to the Lula government’s environmental policy.

In a move that caused outrage among environmentalists and undermined the good results regarding the drop in deforestation in the Amazon, the president announced in the first days of COP28 that the country will join OPEC+, a group of observers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Simultaneously with the end of COP28, the government also held the largest fossil fuel auction in history, offering more than 600 blocks for exploration, this Wednesday.

And, by 2025, Brazil must also present results and increase its own climate ambition — which, after comings and goings during the Jair Bolsonaro government, returned to the one adopted in 2015.

“In addition to a city capable of hosting a conference with more than 100 thousand participants, Brazil will need to demonstrate its efforts in complying with the NDC, aiming to demonstrate its capacity to adopt greater climate ambition in the second phase of the Paris Agreement”, says Karen Oliveira, director of Public Policy and Government Relations at the Brazilian branch of the NGO The Nature Conservancy.

Baku and financing

On the way to Belém, however, there is COP29, in 2024, which should take place in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is the third consecutive host, after Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which have an economy highly dependent on oil.

This year, the leak of a letter from OPEC asking OPEC+ members to reject references to the reduction of fossil fuels in the final agreement exposed the type of pressure exerted by large producers in negotiations.

In Baku, a new amount will have to be defined to be allocated by rich countries to climate financing in developing nations. The topic is delicate, it has been going on for years and there may be rough edges to be ironed out the following year.

“This year, Brazilian negotiators repeated this message a lot: for an unprecedented emissions cut, we need unprecedented financing”, highlights Herschmann. “Next year’s COP is about financing and maintaining the [objetivo de] 1.5°C alive depends a lot on that.”

The Brazilian government is a historic defender of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: the understanding that all countries need to do their part to stop the climate crisis, but that the biggest emitters and the richest must play more incisive roles.

The Climate Observatory specialist explains that, currently, all issues somehow end up coming to the question of how much money is needed and who will pay the climate bill.

“It’s the consequence of inaction. You haven’t mitigated emissions enough, so it’s more expensive to do so. Then you have to deal with more extreme events, and climate adaptation becomes more expensive. Then you haven’t mitigated and haven’t adapted, so there are losses and damages [causados pelo clima]. It’s like compound interest, things accumulate”, he compares.

Action roadmap

In practice, the outstanding issues that were not addressed at this COP and those that remain undefined in 2024 may be left to Belém, increasing the pressure on the host.

“The results of COP28 make clearer the size of the challenge of this two-year race until COP30. Building an agenda will require collaboration and broad participation domestically, and also a maturing of Brazil’s relations with other countries in the Global South”, assesses Maria Netto, executive director of iCS (Instituto Clima e Sociedade).

To try to minimize this cascade effect and develop a roadmap of actions (called “Mission 1.5°C”), Brazil proposed the creation of a troika, together with the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, which was adopted in the final text of Dubai.

According to the document, the objective of this working group is to “significantly improve international cooperation and the enabling international environment to stimulate ambition” in the next round of NDCs, aiming to keep the 1.5°C target within reach.

Ramos says he believes that this could be a space to advance the discussion about overcoming fossil fuels. Like the other two members, Brazil is also a major oil producer.

“We need leaders who understand the size of the task — that we are dealing with the future and present of the planet — and that this is a negotiation that goes against the economic interests that exist today. It is not an easy task”, says the expert . “We need a group that is very invested in this ‘Mission 1.5°C'”, assesses Herschmann.