Action needed to back up leaders’ crisis talk

Dozens of world leaders say they know the planet is dangerously overheating, and they are trying to keep it from getting worse. The next step is to turn their soaring rhetoric voiced at the beginning of the United Nations climate conference in Dubai into action.

In the first of two days of the two-week summit, presidents, prime ministers and royals from nations rich and poor trotted up to the microphone to lay out commitments to reduce how much their countries spew heat-trapping gases, and asked their colleagues to do better.

Critics, advocacy groups and even some leaders themselves say the words of promise must be followed by deals hammered out by diplomats in the coming days.

The conference, called COP28, is a who’s who of about 150 of Earth's top decision-makers, except the two most powerful men – presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, of the United States and China. The leaders of the two most carbon-polluting nations are glaringly absent.

Kenya’s President William Ruto said that “climate change stands out by far as the defining issue of our era”. He joined many leaders who repeated the major goals of conference organisers to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency.

Those goals aren’t controversial, but what to do about fossil fuels is.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a longtime critic of oil, gas and coal use that is causing climate change, fired his strongest shots yet against the industry, which includes COP28 host country the United Arab Emirates, saying: “We cannot save a burning planet with a firehose of fossil fuels.”

In a direct challenge to fossil fuel-aligned nations, he said the only way to limit warming to the goal set in 2015 in Paris – 1.5C since the start of the industrial era – required eliminating oil, coal and gas use. “Not reduce, not abate. Phase out.”

The conference president yesterday issued a document calling for a “phasedown” of fossil fuels, which experts say is less than a phasing out. But 106 nations from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific signed a statement calling for a full exit.

It was up to the more than 190 countries in the talks to come up with an agreement everyone could be happy with, said conference Director General Majid Al Suwaidi.

This has exposed the traditional fault lines between rich, industrialised countries and much of the developing world – and between pledges and political action.

“Although we’ve made great progress together, the world is just not moving fast enough,” said British Prime Minister Rishi

Sunak. He said “major emitters” must speed up delivery of their promises, “and we must address the disconnect between lofty rhetoric on stages like this and the reality of people’s lives around the world”.

Sunak has approved new North Sea oil drilling, and has pushed further into the future a planned ban in Britain on sales of new petrol and diesel cars. He says he’s still committed to the United Kingdom’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but is taking a “pragmatic” approach that does not unfairly hit taxpayers – ahead of a possible election next year.

Many developing-world leaders pledged to do more to advance solar power and other renewable energies, while calling for technology transfer, help in building resilience against climate disasters, and sharing of “best practices” – as Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema put it – from “the North” to help continents like Africa benefit as well.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, home to most of the Amazon rainforest, said “the planet is tired of climate agreements that were not fulfilled”, and he had had enough of “eloquent and empty speeches”.

Lula called for climate justice for poorer nations that didn’t cause the problem, and railed against US$2 trillion spent on weapons last year when the money should have been spent on fighting hunger and climate change. He said Brazil would stop Amazon deforestation by 2030.

Many leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, took aim at coal. The Japanese leader pledged ending new construction of coal-fired power plants, in a clearer show of determination than in the past towards achieving net-zero. While Japan has faced criticism for not setting a timeline for eliminating coal power plants, the country has achieved a 20% emissions reduction, and is on target to lower that to 46% by 2030.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed that his nation, the world’s most populous country and third-biggest carbon-polluting nation, host the climate talks in 2028.

He also announced that his country would spearhead the green credits programme, which will likely allow individuals and corporations to purchase credits on a dedicated website yet to be set up to offset their emissions.

Many of the leaders represent countries hard hit by floods, storms, drought and heatwaves worsened by climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. They include the island nations of Palau and the Maldives, as well as the leaders of Pakistan and Libya, which have been devastated by recent floods that killed thousands.

Host country the UAE continued to spend money to show its green credentials, including establishing a US$30 billion (NZ$48b) investment programme for climate-friendly technology. The UAE pledged US$100m (NZ$161m) to a climate damage compensation fund on Friday, and added pledges of US$300m (NZ$483m) in other climate spending yesterday.