The first simulations on the impact of the Dubai Agreement, after COP28.

Global stocktake. Technically the main purpose of the 28th UN backed “conference of parties” that has run in Dubai for two weeks until yesterday, was to assess progress of the implementation of the Paris agreement on climate change. And technically the conference led by Sultan Al Jaber, could not avoid starting from the acknowledgment of a failure.

Seven years ago, 195¹ countries committed collectively to the objective of reducing emissions by 43% within 2030: this was seen as key to keep global warming below 1.5 degree Celsius or at least well below 2.0 C, compared to pre-industrial levels. Seven years later, with only seven years left before the 2030 crucial deadline, not only emissions have not been reduced, but they even grew by a further 8%. No scenario is now consistent with the 1.5 C target, with what Sultan Al Jaber has tenaciously called the "North Star of climate change policies". Even if we stay between 1.5 and 2 C of increase on the world temperature, we risk hitting a couple of triggers (being them an acceleration of the melting of the poles; or the transformation of the Amazon in savannah; or the oscillation of the oceanic currents; or the alteration of the oldest oceanic food chains) that can have move climate on uncontrollable paths.
It was mandatory to respond to the challenge and yet the format of COP itself is not good enough to revert failures. Al Jaber has, however, proved patience and leadership. He managed to build consensus on five crucial policy changes.

The first simulations² of the impact of the Dubai agreement that we are conducting at Vision say that:

1) The most relevant commitment at the moment is that to “triple renewable capacity by 2030” (Article 28, letter A of the final agreement).
One of the problems of this text is that they sometimes seem to be intentionally open to different interpretations. If by "renewables" we only mean solar and wind, this means bringing the photovoltaic and wind capacity from 3.400 Terawatt per hour to 10.200 Terawatt per hour. This is a giant leap forward.

2) Even less clear is the commitment (next to the above mentioned Article 28), where Dubai calls for “doubling the global average of energy efficiency by 2030”. Here, we assume that the word “growth” is missing.
Apart from some imprecision due to the nighttime negotiations, this would mean to decrease the quantity of energy needed to produce one dollar of GDP at a rate which would double the speed we are already having. Since the year 2000, the world GDP has tripled, and yet the energy consumed has increased of just 40%. This is a lot and yet this means that we are consuming half of the energy, we used to consume for each dollar of output: if we double the rate of energy gains and if we consider that the world economy will probably slow down, it is not unthinkable that the total energy consumption will stay roughly the same.

3) The combination of the first and the second commitment should, then, increase the share of solar and wind on the total energy from current 2% to about 15%. And, at the same time, the consumption of fossil would shrink of 15%. It may seem not a big change and yet we need to consider that the demand of oil and gas is basically still close to its historical record. A reduction of 15% of fossil fuel is an amount which is just enough for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade” (Article 28, letter A of the final agreement). It will not bankrupt Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar and, more importantly, developing countries – like Angola or Nigeria – that get from oil most of the resources that are indispensable to run public services; and yet it is enough to send to the markets the powerful signal that the “times are changing”. Indeed, it is symbolically telling that such a target was established under the presidency of the managing director of one of the largest oil companies in the world (ADNOC). Sultan Al Jabeer seems to be one of those leaders who are capable to recognize that the business model of its own company is to be redesigned and that future is to be anticipated.

4) Not less important is the recognition of the financial effort that the above targets will require. In the critical section of “means of implementation of report”, there is a recognition that “4.3 trillion USD will have to be invested in clean energy per year until 2030” (art. 68). It is a huge financial effort and the real challenge that the plan will have to solve.

5) Finally, COP28 scored an agreement on the “loss and damage fund” on the first day of the meeting when a President’s proposal titled “Operationalisation of the new funding arrangements for responding to loss and damage” was agreed.
This fulfilled a pledge made a year ago at the COP in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, where rich countries, chiefly responsible for historic carbon emissions, agreed to compensate mostly poor countries that did little to cause global warming but are the most threatened by its consequences. However, if one tries to read the 18 pages of the text, he will have trouble finding in them anything particularly operational. Four big operational questions about the fund remain unanswered. Who is going to pay for it and how much? Who will be the beneficiaries? Which losses due to what kinds of event are going to be covered? Who is going to manage the whole thing?

The last point on the “loss and damage” brings us back to the biggest challenge that COP28 leaves to the 198 countries and to its next edition (in Baku). As Sultan Al Jaber rightly said in his final speech at Dubai, “an agreement is only as good as its implementation. We are what we do, not what we say. We must take the steps necessary to turn this agreement into tangible action”. The implementation is key and to have that, we cannot any longer postpone a reflection on how to change the format of the COPs and the “global governance of climate change” (as for the title of the Dolomite Conference). This will be the objective of the second follow up to Dubai that Vision is planning for the next days.

[1] Only Libya, Yemen and Iran did not do so. Eritrea joined in February 2023. The USA withdrew with Trump administration and reversed the decision with Biden.

[2]  The data we have used for this paper comes from: University of Oxford; Our World in data; Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy .