COP28 At A Glance: MWEJN Reports Back
This week’s blogpost is co-authored with MWEJN Member, Beto Lugo-Martinez. Image courtesy of Beto Lugo-Martinez.
The COP28 Summit came to a close on December 13th in Abu Dhabi. Hosted by the United Arab Emirates, this year’s focus was on global transition away from fossil fuels. With a benchmark goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, there was a strong emphasis on investment in renewable energy and green technologies in order to double worldwide energy efficiency by 2030. Other major focal points of the summit included rethinking climate finance accessibility, inclusivity in climate action policies and solutions, and a strong emphasis on youth voices, with the COP28 President, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, receiving the Global Youth Statement, representing a years’ worth of conversations and demands drafted by young people across the globe.
Although this year’s Climate Summit underscored the need for equitable solutions to climate change across the globe, several of our partner organizations who attended the summit noted the persistence of false climate solutions that still allows the fossil fuel industry to operate largely unchanged. The persistence of fossil fuel industry influence at COP28 was clear, as attendees from MWEJN partner organization Climate Justice Alliance wrote in updates from the summit. As one CJA social media post on X pointed out, last year’s COP summit had over 600 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, and this year’s COP28 summit continued that trend with its leadership. COP28 was headed by Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, who is at the helm of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, one of the largest oil producers in the world in the last five years, with stated plans to increase oil production over the next decade.
Image courtesy of Beto Lugo-Martinez.
Two days after COP28 came to a close, MWEJN partner organization NDN Collective drafted a response statement to the summit, outlining the strong need for Indigenous leadership at the forefront of the world’s next climate summit, COP29. Their statement highlighted Indigenous communities’ continued stewardship of the majority of the world's biodiversity, and called for Indigenous leadership at the forefront of global climate discussions like the annual Climate Summits. They also pushed back against the sanitizing language adopted by larger countries around fossil fuels at the summit, who emphasized “abating [their] development,” rather than ending their use. This language has been rejected by island communities and smaller countries, both of whom are up against the acute climate consequences of continued fossil fuel usage by larger nations like the United States. And as COP28 leaders advocated for green technology solutions to the climate crisis, NDN Collective and other Indigenous organizations pointed out that these technologies still depend on extractive industries for the natural resources needed to build them. Many of these natural resources and the industries that have been built on their extraction are located in and around the homelands of Indigenous communities across the globe.
Beto Lugo-Martinez, Midwest Environmental Justice Network member, was a participant in several key conversations around global environmental justice during the summit. In this week’s blog post, he joins us as a guest writer to share some of his insights and observations on COP28.
COP28 At A Glance
Indigenous nations, the global south, turtle island and over 100 countries recognize the urgency to phase out fossil fuels, and the need for real solutions to climate injustice across the globe. Despite this public recognition of the need to stop current extractive economies, governments, and industries in order to end carbon emissions, this year’s COP28 United Nations commitment scratched the surface. During civil society negotiations and briefings it was clear that there was backpedaling on progress–lead negotiators included language that allows fossil fuel industry giants and polluters to continue business as usual. It was not surprising then to hear that the agreement reached was to reduce or phase down fossil fuel use, instead of phasing out coal, oil and gas.
Carbon Management was a central topic at this year’s COP28, but the greenwashing was so pervasive in negotiations. Even when lead negotiators stated that carbon management and sequestration or capture are unproven technologies, they would still include it as a fossil fuel climate solution. Carbon Management refers to techniques or practices that control the release of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere, some of these unproven technologies include carbon sequestration and storage, direct air capture or other methods to capture emissions for a set amount of time and releasing them back into the atmosphere. While at the table I expressed concerns with this statement, and asked if they could include that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is not the solution.
Other terms that were being thrown around included Abatement. Abating fossil fuels is generally understood to mean some form of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is used to capture the emissions from fossil fuels. There is currently no formally agreed upon definition of the standard to which this would be expected to operate. It might seem reasonable to assume that 'abated' fossil fuels would have no, or very minimal, levels of associated greenhouse gas emissions. But in fact, CCS technology does not achieve this. The definition of 'abated' is left open to interpretation, and continued emission of greenhouse gasses and co-pollutants. The meaning of abated is important because leading up to COP28 the G7 and European Council—have called for the phase out of 'unabated fossil fuel'. This is different to calling for the phase out of fossil fuels (which refers to phasing out all fossil fuels) because it would permit continued usage of fossil fuels, so long as they were 'abated'. This continues to give the fossil fuel industry a lifeline.
In the States, Environmental and Climate Justice activists have been at the forefront of opposing and pushing a national strategy on CCS. We met earlier this year at the Wingspread Center in Wisconsin during the National Symposium on Climate Justice and Carbon Management to issue a joint statement on carbon management strategies being funded and promoted by the federal government. Opposing unproven fixes to the fossil fuel climate crisis such as CCS has been a top priority for environmental justice communities in the states because of the continued co-pollutant, emissions, and historical harms associated with fossil fuels, petrochemicals, explosions, releases that occur locally and abroad. These harms are primarily in overburdened communities and we see the impacts on our health and communities everyday. Additionally, fossil fuel infrastructure such as land grabs and pipelines continue to be associated with erasing Indigenous lands and nations, the missing and murdered Indigenous people crisis, and premature deaths in our local communities.
Image courtesy of Beto Lugo-Martinez.
The environmental justice movement opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms. We will not stay silent and will continue to organize, because there is no climate justice without human rights–oppression to one is oppression all. Right now, there is a continued assault on human rights–we cannot fail to address the genocide that is happening in Palestine, which is deeply connected to systems of colonialism and exploitation. It is a violation of human rights for the sake of profits, and we demand a cease fire now .
On the afternoon of December 9th within the COP28 ‘blue zone’ around 500 people/activists held the largest demonstration at a United Nations Climate of the Parties Conference. We called for a cease fire. Other calls to action included; climate justice is a right not for just the rich and white, and make polluters pay. The demonstrators chanted in opposition to false climate solutions such as net zero, carbon offsets, and cap and trade. These schemes involve compensating polluters or governments for investments that generate emissions reductions elsewhere–like restoring a made up forest stand of trees, for example. Meanwhile, they continue to shift and increase emissions in overburdened communities. So, polluters need to pay. The Financing and Loss and Damage Fund that was central to negotiations last year at COP27 agreed to create a fund to help poorer nations already being hit by climate-fueled disasters. But during COP28 it was still not decided who will pay into the fund, or how it will be managed and or implemented.
The influence of the fossil fuel industry at COP28 was evident, and I knew this coming to Dubai. However while dealing with colonialism and institutional and environmental racism in our local communities , I decided to attend because as an environmental justice organizer and strategic alignment with EJ movement leaders pushing against the false solutions that the fossil fuel and industrial polluters, who have an influence on our local communities decision making, since they are not experts on health, or the generating sector. I can leverage high level UN negotiations to inform local solutions and have a continued seat in the decision making without an invitation. The greenwashing continued, but we will stand firm in continued solidarity with one another–nature, water, air, land and our mother earth.
-Beto Lugo-Martinez, MWEJN Member