By University of Canterbury Postdoctoral Research Fellow Suli Vunibola
COP28 (the United Nations annual climate change conference) can be said to be the most influential of all the COP conferences as it is the first time that the elephant in the room, ‘fossil fuel’, has been mentioned in any agreement. There were cheers and a standing ovation to mark the passing of the COP28 deal, but the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) says otherwise. AOSIS is a group of 39 island nations and represents countries that are impacted by the Climate Crisis, including the Pacific Island Countries. Apart from AOSIS member countries’ absence in the room when the decisions were gavelled, the recommended verb of ‘phasing out’ was omitted and replaced by ‘transitioning’ or just ‘just transition’ as seen in the media.
According to the research we have been doing for the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) research project, ‘just transition’ is just the rewording of the same issue in relation to rampant carbon offsetting mechanisms and programs, with injustices felt throughout the world including the Pacific Island Countries. I frame this as climate fraud, pointing to the buzz words such as ‘Carbon zero, net zero, climate neutral, net zero emissions, carbon neutrality, net zero energy businesses, sustainability pathways, and neutrality’ will only mean the increased facilitation of carbon offsetting schemes.
Our research shows adverse effects for Indigenous groups globally including the Pacific. The impacts include carbon colonialism, Indigenous co-optation, massive land grabbing, greenwashing, irrational claims for carbon sequestration, political and economic patronage, techno solutions and techno salvationism, to name a few. Carbon offsetting programs and extensive investments in renewable energies will be the focus in order to save the global fossil fuel mega economies - or until more negotiations during COP29, which will again be hosted by a country depending on fossil fuel economy.
‘Just transition’ should mean the pluriverse idea of socio-ecological justice for all, however the energy transition will need more rare metals and exponential explorations for sea-bed mining in the Pacific, which has made some of the Islands already weary of maladaptation. Even communities like Drawa village in Fiji, which invested a huge part of their native forest in a carbon trade initiative, and fenced people from using resources from the forest, found the money they receive is not enough. To them it is not a ‘just transition’ of the new mode of their community economy; it makes things even harder. Is the ‘just transition’ or ‘transitioning from’ a conduit for mega economies to keep reaping extravagant profit on the expense of earth as a ‘limited life supporting system’ and Pacific Indigenous communities gambling with their livelihood and life?
By University of Canterbury Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Dalila Gharbaoui
Since the beginning of climate negotiations in 1995, there has been a disconnect between climate sciences and policy. This took about three decades to finally bring the crucial discussion around phasing out fossil fuels to the table of climate negotiations. For the first time in about three decades of COP climate negotiations, consensus was reached by 196 governments on moving away from oil, gas and coal that is currently the main source of global energy across the world. While evidence from climate sciences is clear around the need to phase out fossil fuels, in the policy space this agreement sends a strong signal around transitioning to a new era that is the beginning of the end of fossil fuels. This is an achievement, but not sufficient for climate vulnerable states who cannot afford to wait any longer.
After the recent embattled climate negotiations had to be extended beyond the official deadline to reach consensus, the outcome of the COP28 agreement moved away from considering "phasing out" fossil fuels and rather calls for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner". This is a major achievement but far more still needs to be done to achieve equity and climate justice for all, including addressing climate finance to support emerging and developing countries to equitably transition to clean energies and climate mobility, which is still lacking clear pathways for communities and states most impacted by climate change.
The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report urges both incremental and transformational acceleration of climate adaptation and mitigation; “transitioning away from fossil fuels” is incremental but “phasing out fossil fuels” would have been transformational.
The COP28 agreement also commits to a loss and damage fund, tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. This requires: a) accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power; b) accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century; c) accelerating and substantially reducing non-carbon-dioxide emissions globally, including in particular methane emissions by 2030; and d) phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible.
Consistent with research showing that raising awareness on the impacts of climate change is very important, but it is counter-productive to keep the focus only on alarmist talk that can lead to a paralysing fear, these are major achievements and looking at the ‘COP half full’ is important as these small wins are, in fact, crucial steps towards major decisions such as completely phasing out fossil fuels in future. But some climate vulnerable countries simply cannot afford to wait for another decade to achieve phasing out of fossil fuels.
Climate negotiations are a diplomatic instrument used to urge collective action from governments that have various political and economic contexts and often divergent national interests. As highlighted by the IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, above a global temperature rise of 1.5°C the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) regions face impacts which may be irreversible. Not achieving agreement on phasing out fossil-fuels today has critical implications for these States that have contributed little to the climate change while being the first impacted with a number of Islands’ survival such as Kiribati and Tuvalu threatened by sea level rise. While the changes in language can seem small, slight differences in UN documents can significantly change what countries are obliged to do. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), including Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates but also other countries such as Russia and Iran, hold positions largely opposing strong language on phasing out fossil fuels and called for what they consider a more realistic energy transition in which fossil fuels would keep a role in securing energy supplies while industries decarbonise. They are pushing for what they call realistic approaches to tackle emissions - one that enables economic growth, helps eradicate poverty and increases resilience at the same time. COP is about getting different worldviews and interests at the same table and engaging States in a consensus process that is a challenge to achieve.
Yet the agreement lacks sufficiently consistent provisions around financing a just transition for developing countries that are still relying on fossil fuels to develop their economies and will not be able to transition to clean energy without addressing this gap. Most of these States are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and economically dependent on oil and gas with less resources than developed countries to deal with the global transition away from fossil fuels. This is a major incoherence that will need to be addressed; developed nations that have developed their economies based on fossil fuels exploitation, are now expecting developing countries to transition to renewable energy without an equitable and just mechanism in place to ensure it can be financed and affordable for all.
COP28 (like others) has shown how much underlying climate politics and geopolitical interests are central at the table of international climate negotiations and drivers of major climate decisions for the future of our planet. This reaffirms the need for research to critically engage with concepts and narratives deriving from the UNFCCC process. Climate mobility research and evidence-based policy still commonly refer to the threefold category “planned relocation, displacement, and migration” to define and frame climate mobility. This framing emerged from the UNFCCC process through the Cancun Adaptation Framework [paragraph 14(f)] defining “human mobility” in the context of adaptation to climate change].
As part of the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment (POCCA) research project, we have been rethinking these concepts by exploring community stories on the climate crisis including on climate mobility. We aim to critically engage with this categorisation emerging largely through the UNFCCC process and attempt to understand the terminology and concepts that would be more suitable to frame the dynamic and wide range of mobilities and immobilities emerging as adaptation response to climate change in the Pacific.
Participating in COP28 as part of the UC virtual delegation made me realise how much these types of research projects are important to shift narratives and reframe climate research around concepts and perceptions from communities on the ground. We also need to critically engage with definitions deriving from international arena such as UNFCCC that are politically loaded and shouldn’t dictate research framings on any area of climate research.
