Reacción a "Reactions: COP28 approves "transition away from fossil fuels" in Global Stocktake"

On the face of it, it is difficult not to assess the final COP28 text positively if we base it solely on the expectations most of us had of an agreement coming out of a COP in a petro-state whose president, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, is not only the chairman of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, but has also publicly denied the science behind the demands to phase out fossil fuels. But since we are talking about a diplomatic instrument, the value is in the details. 

The COP28 agreement will not allow the world to maintain the 1.5°C limit because the countries present at COP28 have agreed to abandon fossil fuels (the exact words in the final text are "transition away"), but they do not commit to a total phase-out (what was called for by scientific institutions, climate activism and the countries most affected by the climate emergency was "phase out"). On the positive side, the outcome is a significant moment for global climate action because this agreement manages to make it clear to all financial institutions, companies and societies that we are finally - eight years behind what was established in Paris - at the true "beginning of the end" of the global economy driven by fossil fuels. 

Continuing with the positive reading, and looking beyond the final text because the COPs are much more than that, on the COP28 Nature, Land Use and Oceans Day (9 December), 18 countries - including Spain - endorsed the COP28 Joint Statement on Climate, Nature, and People, promoted by the COP28 Presidency of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the COP15 Presidency of the CBD (United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity), uniting for nature and placing it at the centre of climate action. The joint statement represents a new vision for aligning climate and biodiversity policy agendas and stipulates that nations must align both nationally and internationally around the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The collective ambition expressed in the joint statement aims to encourage and support the implementation of their respective national instruments: NDCs, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), Long Term Strategies (LTS) for climate and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) for biodiversity. 

Another positive outcome was the Leaders' Declaration on the Food System, a global commitment to be realised at regional and local level. The 134 countries that produce 75% of greenhouse gas emissions from food - accounting for 30% of total emissions - and consume 70% of all food globally, have agreed to transform food systems for the benefit of climate, nature and people. Signatory countries must collaborate and align climate commitments with the goals of protecting and restoring nature, and to this end have committed to include food systems approaches in their updated NDCs, their NAPs, as well as in their NBSAPs. In this way, the declaration sets out a framework for transformative food-based climate and environmental action. 

It is true that it is disappointing to see how a very small number of countries have been able to put short-term national interests before the future of people and nature; however, let us think of these COPs as a series. COP28 has been just one chapter, the series is not over and there are many interwoven plots that are moving forward at different speeds, but moving forward nonetheless.