Why COP28 Could Be the Most Contentious in Years

Expect a diplomatic sandstorm when world leaders and their ministers meet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late November and early December for the next global climate summit. The gathering—known as the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28)—could prove the most contentious round of climate talks in almost a decade and also test the effectiveness of the 2015 Paris Agreement in tackling the biggest climate challenges.

The UAE, which will preside over the negotiations, has signaled its intention to use COP28 to craft major outcomes on at least two extremely challenging geopolitical climate issues: establishing new global goals for greening the energy economy and clarifying the financial assistance that rich nations should provide poorer nations to facilitate and incentivize climate action. Whether COP28 will be remembered for breakthroughs in these areas is difficult to predict.

As over 75 percent of global climate pollution comes from burning fossil fuels—which release carbon dioxide and methane, the two largest climate pollutants—one might expect that over the past three decades of global climate negotiations the international community would have reached some agreement on their future use. Not so. For decades, nations have disagreed vigorously about how and when to reduce fossil fuel emissions—and even whether ending reliance on coal, oil, and gas is necessary.

Entering COP28, the European Union, United States, several other developed nations, and many small island states (which are extremely vulnerable to severe storms and sea levels rising) are calling for a rapid transition to renewable energy. They want COP28 to establish nonbinding dates for ending the “unabated” use of fossil fuels—consumption of these fuels without simultaneously capturing, storing, and/or repurposing climate pollution. That’s a big deal, because today, virtually all emissions from oil, gas, and coal are unabated and abatement technologies are not yet affordable or globally scalable. Many of these nations are also now proposing that states pledge to end the construction of new coal plants immediately and establish a date for shuttering existing ones. Some developing nations, including African states, argue that new fossil fuel goals should not apply initially to the least-developed nations, who they maintain need access to all energy sources to escape poverty. Still other countries, including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia, oppose setting specific dates for phasing out fossil fuels at this time, arguing that doing so would unfairly single out one source of climate pollution while ignoring others, and be contrary to the spirit of the Paris Agreement, which allows every nation to decide for itself what climate technologies and policies to pursue.

Although some nations have long called for ending fossil fuel use, ignoring the fossil fuel elephant in the room will be difficult at COP28. The Paris Agreement requires that the international community assess every five years, starting in 2023, the adequacy of global climate action. The results of this year’s assessment, known as the “global stocktake,” were a foregone conclusion—scientists agree that the world is not doing enough to avoid potentially unmanageable and catastrophic climate change. What remains unclear—and politically interesting—is what, if anything, world leaders and their ministers will do in response. Some argue that failing to come up with a meaningful plan to raise climate ambition at COP28 could raise questions about the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Paris Agreement. As phasing down global use of fossil fuels would do more than anything else to help close the gap between what science requires and what nations have done thus far, COP28 seems likely to provide the first real global debate about the future of fossil fuels.

Earlier this fall, Western nations failed to secure the support of the full G-20 for phasing out unabated fossil fuels, with Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia actively opposing. China—currently the world’s largest climate polluter—seems immovable on this point. When Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met in San Francisco in mid-November, the bilateral statement their climate envoys produced had no new quantitative targets or deadlines on fossil fuel consumption. The United States and China did agree the world should triple global annual investments in renewable energy by 2030. While that is necessary, it will not be sufficient to decarbonize the energy economy. With China dug in, it’s safe to predict that COP28 probably will not produce a formal global consensus on dates for phasing down unabated fossil fuels in general or even coal specifically.

While a global consensus may prove elusive, COP28 could still deliver progress on this issue. The United States and EU appear more willing than ever to shine a spotlight on China’s failure to rein in its growing fossil fuel use, particularly its construction of roughly two new coal plants per week. At COP28, the Western allies are trying to rally a broad coalition of “high ambition” nations, made up of developed and developing nations willing to commit to blocking construction of new coal plants and retiring existing ones. It’s possible that the trans-Atlantic allies will recruit dozens or even one hundred nations to join the voluntary plurilateral fossil fuel pledge, particularly if accommodations are made for the least developed nations. Should this occur, China’s refusal to be part of the group will be noticed and covered by the global media. That’s significant, because until now China has managed to avoid taking the blame for the slow pace of global climate diplomacy.

The second storm in Dubai could be about money. Traditionally, developed nations have provided funds to developing nations to both help them adapt to climate change and mitigate increases in climate pollution. During COP28, nations are expected to argue over at least three issues relating to this international climate finance.

The first dispute will be over the adequacy of total climate funding. In 2009, donor countries agreed to mobilize by 2020 $100 billion a year to support climate action in the developing world. While international climate finance has more than doubled and some say tripled over this decade and a half, donor nations failed to reach the $100 billion mark until this year, although the official accounting for 2023 may not be known until 2025. Thanks to recent analysis by the International Energy Agency and others, we now know that greening the energy economy will require mobilizing an additional $2.7 trillion annually from public and private sources. It’s difficult to know what share of that total needs to come from public coffers, but most experts agree that $100 billion in public funding will not suffice to decarbonize the developing world; more than double that may be required over the next decade, although there’s no global consensus on the number at this time. Most likely, COP28 will kick the can down the road on a major new funding pledge, such as by agreeing that nations should agree on a new funding target in 2024 or 2025.

The second dispute over money will center on whether developed nations should do a better job of delivering climate aid to the least-developed nations, particularly for climate adaptation and resilience. Today, only a tiny fraction of international climate finance goes to the poorest nations—3.7 percent by some estimates. Rapidly developing emerging economies gobble up the lion’s share. Over the past decade, in addition, only 23 percent of international climate finance funds adaptation and resilience programs instead of emissions mitigation. This is because reducing climate pollution helps people in donor countries, too, whereas most adaptation funding primarily benefits local communities in poor nations. Plus, reducing emissions means less climate change and less need for adaptation. With climate change driving international migration from Africa and elsewhere, however, developed nations are starting to understand the need for more adaptation and resilience funding. But it’s not at all clear that nations are ready to agree at COP28 on how to rebalance climate aid and direct a larger share to the poorest nations.

The third international climate finance controversy at COP28 will relate to operationalizing the new “loss and damage” fund nations agreed in 2022 to create. Unlike traditional climate aid, the loss and damage fund is meant to provide financial assistance to developing nations that are already suffering from adverse climate impacts, such as more severe hurricanes, floods, droughts, and sea level rise. For the past several months, nations have argued over how much money should go into the fund, how the fund should be capitalized, who should decide how funds are spent, and where the funds should sit to protect against waste, fraud, and abuse. Earlier this month, a likely compromise emerged. If nations at COP28 accept the proposed deal, contributions to the new fund will be voluntary and the fund will be managed provisionally by the World Bank, but developing nations will have a major role in determining how funds are spent. Loss and damage negotiations at COP28, therefore, are likely to center on the biggest issue—whether donor nations should commit to capitalize the fund at a particular quantitative level. Developing nations want that clarity and accountability; developed countries would prefer to keep things vague.

The United States may prove to be the largest obstacle to reaching agreement on all three of these international climate finance issues. The Biden administration presumably would prefer to delay decisions on big new foreign aid programs until after the U.S. presidential election in November 2024, since Republicans would surely use any new pledges against the president in the general election. Climate aid, like all foreign aid, is unpopular with voters and was the reason Donald Trump gave for pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement. In addition, at COP28, the Biden administration will likely worry about whether the United States could deliver on any new climate finance pledge. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is highly unlikely to increase climate aid. Unfortunately for the president and climate envoy John Kerry, the world is aware of this and increasingly frustrated with America’s perceived inability to lead on climate finance. Developing nations could stage a walkout during the talks. Many climate advocates will protest what they will describe as U.S. or Western obstruction.

Together, the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, account for 45 percent of global energy emissions. As the preceding analysis demonstrates, these nations play a major role in shaping the speed of global climate action and the outcomes at climate talks. At COP28, look for both nations to be somewhat on the defensive, despite the recent U.S.-China statement on enhancing climate cooperation.

China should be doing more to wean itself off of coal, and its failure to commit to doing so—assuming China stands firm—will erode its claim to global leadership. The United States is now the world’s leading producer of oil and gas, and lacks a broad societal consensus to wind down those industries, despite positions taken by president Biden and John Kerry. The United States, in addition, should be doing more to mobilize funds for climate action in the developed world. Growing global awareness that the United States lacks political will on climate finance is undermining confidence in U.S. leadership once more, despite Biden’s numerous domestic climate policy victories. Each country is playing for global hearts and minds. Whereas China paints itself as fighting for developing countries to secure additional climate finance from the United States and other donor nations, in the Biden administration the United States positions itself as leading the charge to create a coherent global response to the global stocktake, including by securing more action from China. This year’s climate summit may provide an indication of which power has the upper hand on climate geopolitics.