The vision
“We are taking on this audacious project to remake the world in a way that is built on a sustainable infrastructure, a more just infrastructure, that will usher in health equity and help people thrive. I think this is the greatest project that modern society has ever undertaken. It’s going to have a lot of ups and downs. There are going to be moments of feeling a lot of horror and fear and there are going to be transformative moments. And my hope is that people find community, that they find their voice, they find their people, and they feel a commitment to be in it for the long haul.”
Gaurab Basu, doctor and climate advocate
The spotlight
COP28, this year’s annual conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, concluded in Dubai on Wednesday morning. Things got tough over the past few days, with world leaders hammering out the final text of the first global stocktake – a document that assesses progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, and outlines measures countries must take to meet them.
One of the key points of debate was whether countries would agree a phasing out of fossil fuels. Former Vice President Al Gore took to social media on Monday to explain it “To prevent COP28 from being the most embarrassing and dismal failure in 28 years of international climate negotiations, the final text must include clear language on phasing out fossil fuels.” The agreement stops one step short of that. It calls for “switching away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a fair, orderly and equitable manner,” and also calls for a phase-out of “unabated” coal power. (Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe referred to “unmitigated” as a weasel word.)
While many advocates and delegates wanted more decisive language, the stocktaking text does make history as the first global climate agreement to specifically mention fossil fuels and call for limiting their use. And this conference included a number of other firsts, including an agreement on a loss and damage fund achieved on the very first day.
For advocates on the ground at COP fighting for certain outcomes, the agreements generated are just the beginning. “It really all comes down to continued local activism and pressure on the government because we are not currently on track for 1.5 in any way, shape or form,” said Alexia Leclercqthe policy director at People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources, or PODER, and co-founder of an educational organization called Start: Empowerment, referring to the goal set out in the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees C too limited.
“Sometimes it can feel very hopeless, especially just seeing how much of an achievement the Paris climate agreement was, but how little follow-through there is,” she said. Ultimately, that compliance depends on ongoing pressure and accountability at the local, national and international levels.
We asked four advocates involved in the conference in different ways for their reflections on the COP process and the work ahead. Here’s what they had to say.
“We really need to use it to pressure governments”
Leclercq (who appeared on our 2023 Grist 50 list) attended COP for the second time this year, with the group Kick Big Polluters Out and also as part of a coalition of youth activists focused on a fair phase-out of fossil fuels. Although the word “phasing out” did not make it into the final agreement, Leclercq noted when we spoke last week that any commitment countries made on fossil fuels would require watchdogs.
“Even if the language makes it to the text, I think we’re really going to have to use it to push governments to actually implement it and actually triple renewable energy capacity and actually phase out,” she said. In other words, it’s a long road ahead for activists — even after a long and exhausting piece of days at the conference itself.
For example, the final agreement specifies the transition away from fossil fuels energy systems – Leclercq noted that the development of fossil fuels for plastic production does not appear to be considered part of a phase-out or transition, based on discussions she and her team have had with US negotiators.
“The final global stocktake simply does not keep the goals of the Paris Agreement alive, and as a result frontline communities are dying every day,” Leclercq told me this morning.
Despite concerns about implementation and extreme disappointment that the agreement did not go further, Leclercq finds the conference itself to be a valuable space for knowledge sharing and solidarity. “Besides being here to follow the negotiations, it’s nice to be in such an international space and to meet civil society, frontline communities and indigenous groups from different parts of the world to build solidarity and about each other’s work to learn,” she said. said. “That’s one thing I like about COP. It’s exhausting and chaotic, and it’s a very emotional process. But I think that part of it is very refreshing and quite beautiful to be able to learn from.
“We want health professionals to be at the table”
The link between climate change and human health received a much-needed spotlight at COP28, with a first dedicated Health Day on the agenda. More than 120 countries, including the US, have a Statement on climate and healthcommitted to goals such as better integration of health considerations into climate policy, improving the climate preparedness of healthcare systems and combating social inequalities that create health inequalities.
“For us in the health field, I think Health Day brings the moral urgency to take care of our patients,” said Gaurab Basu, a primary care physician and the director of education and policy at the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard’s School of Public Health (and a 2021 Grist 50 Fixer). He traveled to Dubai for the first week of the conference – his first time attending COP. As a physician, he said, he feels a responsibility to bring his perspective on the human cost of climate change and push for accountability to the people who are suffering, in his clinics in Massachusetts and around the world. “This work can get abstract and analytical, about graphs and emissions and economics and policy. But there has to be an urgency behind it, and I think health really allows us to do that,” he said.
Yet the health declaration did not go as far as the global stocktake any mention of fossil fuels – which not only drives planetary warming, but also endangering the health of surrounding communities. “We cannot look away from the simple truth that fossil fuels must end and they must end urgently,” he said. He hopes that the statement will at least be a useful starting point. “You know, we really want health professionals to be at the table and push urgently to get these things done.”
“Human rights must be at the center of the agenda”
Adrien Salazar, the policy director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (and a 2019 Grist 50 Fixer), did not attend COP28. For the first time in 15 years, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance preferred to withdraw his delegationwho are participating in a boycott to call for a cease-fire in Israel’s siege of Gaza.
“Human rights must be at the center of the agenda at COP,” Salazar said. And for him, climate justice and demilitarization are intricately linked. “We know that military operations around the world are contributors of not only carbon emissions but toxic pollutants that communities on the front lines of militarized sites face,” he said, calling it “one of the last remaining taboo subjects in the international negotiations”.
He added that the decision to boycott was also partly based on a long-term assessment of how the COP space had been overtaken by corporate interests. This year, data was released for the first time on the number of fossil fuel lobbyists at the conference – about 1 in 40 participants. Salazar is cautiously hopeful that this disclosure will help advocates pushing for a conflict-of-interest policy at future gatherings. “Despite how bad the situation is when we see the numbers, it’s a victory to get the numbers,” Salazar said.
His team is already looking at COP30 in 2025, for which countries must update their national climate pledges. The 2025 conference will in Belém, Brazil, the nearest large city to the mouth of the Amazon. “We think this is a great opportunity to raise all these issues and to work with our movement allies from around the world to make sure that the COP becomes a people’s COP,” he said.
“Entrepreneurs and government need each other”
COP28 shattered attendance records, with more than 84,000 registered participants. “Like me, this year was a first for many, many, many people at COP,” said Danya Hakeem, managing director of the portfolio for Elemental Excelerator, a nonprofit investor focused on scaling emerging climate technology solutions. said.
“It’s been really encouraging to see the private sector, the entrepreneurs, the investors show up in a way that they never had before. It felt like technology and innovation was not just kind of present, but actually the center,” said Hakeem. For the first time, Hakeem notes, there were not just one, but two technology and innovation pavilions, as well as a “startup town” with more than 100 companies sharing exhibits, including a handful from Elemental’s portfolio.
Some advocates have been critical of the business presence at COP28, worried that it distracts from the seriousness of the deliberations and makes the conference feel more like a big scholarship. But Hakeem and others on her team found great value in being part of the space, and some of the serendipitous interactions that were possible at the global forum. “I think entrepreneurs and government need each other to implement the technologies we need to mitigate climate change,” she offered. “I really feel like we need everyone at the table.” And with the negotiations getting rocky at the end of the conference, she felt that the private sector talks at the conference were where real movement was happening.
When we spoke yesterday, Hakeem noted that “even if the news doesn’t go our way in the next few hours here when we get the final word, I feel so encouraged and [I feel] so much drive and momentum from our entrepreneurs who are so passionate, so dedicated, so smart. And they are not going to stop. They are going to keep working day and night to solve these problems. So that’s what keeps me going every day.”
– Claire Elise Thompson
More exposure
Grist reporters followed the conference closely, with senior staff writer Naveena Sadasivam on the ground in Dubai. These stories are just a few highlights – check out all our coverage here.
A parting shot
Youth activists staged a demonstration in Dubai on Tuesday – intended to be the final day of the conference – calling for a swift end to fossil fuels. Leclercq, in the blue shawl, holds a microphone at the front of the group.
