UAE pulls off modest half billion dollar 'coup' to aid poorer nations hit hardest by climate change
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00:00 After a day of rest, talks resume at COP28 in Dubai, pressure mounting as the United
00:05 Nations Climate Conference begins its final week.
00:08 Focus on the future of fossil fuels on a dangerously warming planet.
00:13 Negotiators will work to finalize a key document called the Global Stocktake as well.
00:17 Here's a COP28 President, Siltan al-Jaber.
00:21 We have achieved consensus on the first day with the loss and damage and I believe that
00:30 we can do it again.
00:33 In the next five days, we have the potential to deliver a paradigm shift that can define
00:41 global economies and our future and put the most vulnerable in the center of climate action.
00:50 Well, for more, we can cross to Dubai and speak to Michael Jacobs, a professor of political
00:55 economy at Sheffield University and an expert in UN climate talks.
00:59 Hello to you, Michael.
01:01 Thank you for speaking to us.
01:02 You're attending the conference.
01:04 We just heard that upbeat message from the president of COP28.
01:08 You're a professor.
01:09 What grade would you give that first week of the event?
01:15 I think I'd give it a score of seven out of ten.
01:19 The first day of this COP was really quite dramatic.
01:22 Normally nothing happens on the first day.
01:24 Normally the delegates can barely agree an agenda.
01:27 But what the United Arab Emirates did as chair of the COP was reach one of the most important
01:32 decisions of this fortnight on the very first day, which is very, very unusual.
01:36 On the loss and damage fund, the fund that developing countries have been asking for
01:41 for many years to provide money for the damage and the economic costs that they are already
01:46 experiencing from climate change, just as in the report that you've just had.
01:51 They've been asking the developed countries, the rich countries for money for this.
01:55 And last year a fund was agreed, but no money.
01:58 This year the fund was finalized and then money was put into it, about half a billion.
02:03 Now that's not nearly enough, but it was quite a coup for the United Arab Emirates as chair
02:09 of the conference to pull that off on the first day.
02:12 Since then, they've had a lot of announcements, governments, businesses here making all kinds
02:16 of promises and pledges, quite difficult to work out exactly what they mean.
02:21 And now we're into the final few days when the negotiating text gets done.
02:26 We're still at the very first stage in practice of that.
02:28 So let's see what happens over the next few days.
02:30 The US special envoy, John Kerry, said, quote, "We have done a lot in the first week and
02:35 we've accomplished real things."
02:38 What remains, Michael, for these final few days in Dubai?
02:45 The big issue is on the future of fossil fuels.
02:48 There's quite a lot of agreement here, as indeed around the world, where investment
02:53 in renewables is happening very rapidly, that renewable energy, solar and wind in particular,
02:58 should be increased.
02:59 There will be a commitment here to trebling the amount of solar and wind and other forms
03:04 of renewable energy.
03:05 There's also quite a lot of agreement on energy efficiency.
03:08 Everybody agrees on this.
03:09 The thing they don't agree on is the reduction in the use and production of fossil fuels.
03:14 That's oil and gas and coal.
03:17 So the green stuff everyone thinks should increase, the brown stuff, the difficult fossil
03:23 fuels, people are inevitably split because there are some countries that are big oil
03:28 and gas producers and the United Arab Emirates, where we are, is one of them.
03:32 And there are countries, particularly the most vulnerable countries, the small islands
03:37 and the countries suffering the kind of climate damage that was seen in your report just then,
03:41 who are saying the only way we can limit climate change to the one and a half degrees that
03:47 the world has said it wants to limit it to is if we phase fossil fuel out altogether
03:53 over the next 20 to 30 years.
03:55 That's the big argument that we've now got to have in these next few days.
03:59 Yes.
04:00 So we're looking to see if there's this phase out coming out of Dubai.
04:04 What sort of language would you want included?
04:07 What sort of terms would mean any agreement would be watered down?
04:11 What will you be looking for?
04:15 Well the way in which this has been phrased in recent COPs, particularly over coal a couple
04:22 of years ago at the conference in Glasgow, was a conflict between the idea of phasing
04:28 down fossil fuels and phasing them out.
04:32 Now in practice there's not a lot of difference between those two things if you haven't got
04:35 a date for phasing them out.
04:38 But phasing out does mean ending fossil fuels.
04:41 My view is that we will get away from that wording.
04:44 There's not a lot of compromise achievable between phasing down and phasing out.
04:48 So I think what we will see is a different form of word.
04:52 So for example we will say a world free of fossil fuels in the future.
04:59 Or some other phrase that captures the idea that sometime around 2050 we are really going
05:05 to be on the way out for fossil fuels, even if we find a little bit of different language.
05:10 You know these conferences are all about finding some words which kind of give each side something
05:16 of what they want, but which take the argument forward.
05:19 And I think that's what we will get at the end of this conference.
05:22 Something that isn't phasing out or phasing down, it's a new form of words, but does indicate
05:26 that everybody acknowledges that at some point in the relatively near future we will no longer
05:31 be seeing fossil fuels used.
05:34 You rightly pointed out earlier that the UAE is one of the world's top oil producers.
05:39 There's been some criticism that COP would even be hosted by the country.
05:43 Do you share that or do you think this is an important opportunity for a country like
05:49 the UAE to maybe pivot?
05:54 I don't think any country should be barred from holding a COP.
05:57 We've had COPs in oil producing countries before, Qatar only a few years ago.
06:03 There was a lot of controversy about the person that UAE put in charge of the COP, who is
06:07 also the chief executive of their oil and gas company and also their renewable energy
06:12 company.
06:13 He has multiple jobs.
06:14 But he is the person they appointed and the host country has the right to appoint who
06:18 they want.
06:19 It puts pressure on him because obviously UAE has very strong oil interests and it
06:25 is continuing with them.
06:27 It's not as if it is on a path to phasing out or down at the moment.
06:32 So it puts a lot of pressure on him as the chair.
06:35 He has to be neutral.
06:36 He has to be impartial.
06:37 And everybody will be watching to see whether that is how he behaves.
06:41 And in a sense that might make him a little less anxious to do what the UAE might want
06:47 on its own and a bit more anxious to do what some of the developing countries here want
06:51 to do.
06:52 The other bit of pressure on the UAE is the amount of money they have.
06:55 This is a very, very rich country.
06:58 It's a high income country with huge windfall profits from the rise in energy prices and
07:06 oil prices over the last two years.
07:08 So the UAE's annual revenues from oil is around 100 billion a year.
07:15 And about a third of that last year was an increase on the previous year.
07:19 That's the windfall that they've gained because of the rise in the price.
07:23 That means that they could afford to provide much more money to the most vulnerable countries
07:28 here than they have so far done.
07:31 And I think some of the pressure here on them will be, let's show us some of this money
07:35 that you've been earning.
07:36 Let's give it back to the victims of the climate change that you are helping to cause.
07:39 Michael, thank you very much for your time.
07:41 Dr. Michael Jacobs speaking to us from the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.
07:46 Well, that's it from me.
07:48 Stay tuned, though.
07:49 Live from Paris continues at the top of the hour.