AT PENPOINT
The Conference of Parties of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28 as it is popularly known, was held this year in Dubai, the 8th annual meeting since 1992, was meant, as were its predecessors, to take measures policies to limit global temperature rises and adapt to impacts associated with climate change. This year, it foundered again over two issues which might not make sense if present trends continue: oil, and money.
The increasingly frightful news being given by scientists in their reports to the Conference were showing that the desired 1.5°Celsius goal agreed for an increase in the global mean temperature in 2015 in the Paris Agreement, is not being meet. Unfortunately, the failure of countries to meet their commitments have made that goal improbable. That has probably led to the next phase, one which is being resisted fiercely by members of the Organization of Oil-Exporting Countries, which is to call for fossil fuel phase-out.
OPEC is leading the charge, but the BRICS countries have also been fighting the idea of any caps on the emission of the Greenhouse gases (GHG) which are causing global warming. The GHG were emitted because the developed world burnt vast quantities of fuel on their way to industrialization. A number of Third-World countries, notably India and China, have objected to having caps imposed on their emissions at a time when they are approaching the takeoff stage in their development. Apart from the effect of their non-compliance, other aspirants to development have thrown in their lot with them.
Now those proposing an end to global warming have taken the next step, and argue for a complete fossil-fuel phaseout. That has even more drastic consequences, for not only does it leave developed countries without any means of continuing their current lifestyles, but it also closes the door on developing countries becoming developed. COP 28 Chairman Sultan Al-Jaber is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Limited, making him the first representative of Big Oil to chair the Conference. OPEC countries have already hosted the Conference, Indonesia in 2007 and Qatar in 2012, but neither made the head of the national oil company as Conference Chairman.
OPEC countries would mostly go broke if there was indeed a fossil fuel phaseout. Apart from them, the other major oil producer, the USSR, which makes up the OPEC+ when the time comes for setting quotas. From the peak of OPEC’s power, the 1973 oil embargo, the ‘so-called ‘oil weapon’ is now fighting for itself. Saudi Arabia led the fight in 1973, and it has done so now, delaying the draft of a final agreement to exclude the words ‘fossil fuel phaseout.’
Instead of a fossil fuel phaseout, the OPEC countries argue that the use of fossil fuels should be targeted. It is a truth that the use of fossil fuels, not their extraction and sale, causes the production of greenhouse gases. Of course, the decline in use would lead to a decline in demand.
At the same time, there is a catch. If fossil fuels are placed, it will be by renewables. There are two main uses for fossil fuels, electricity generation and transportation. At the moment, transportation is moving to electric power, but that means greater generation, which in turn means greater use of fossil fuels.
A phaseout will require generation for both power and transportation, which means a major switch to renewables like hydro-, solar and wind. A sort of halfway house from petrol has been sought in natural gas, and is being pushed aggressively by gas producers like Russia and Qatar, but as also produces a GHG when burnt, which means it will be part of a phaseout. The conference Chairman has also stated that the science does not support a phaseout. That sounds suspiciously like the argument initially made by Big Oil: the science did not support the claims of global warming being caused by fossil-fuel use.
A major reason for the resistance to a phaseout is that it would cost a lot. It would mean that power plants, and vehicles, including two-wheelers, would all have to be replaced. Not just by governments, but by individuals. One solution has been the proposed Loss and Damage Fund, which has received just $700 million in pledges, of the $400 billion estimated to be lost every year. Note: there has been no actual disbursement.
The money is for a number of reasons. One is that while global warming can be laid at the doors of the developed world’s conspicuous consumption, its burden is falling on poor countries in the shape of extreme weather events. Not too long from now, it will take the shape of rising sea levels. While that will mean Karachi going under water, it will also mean many states, such as the Maldives or some Pacific island-states being submerged entirely. It is clearly unfair for poor Third World citizens, whose existences are precarious anyhow, to have to pay for First-Worlders’ luxuries.
A second reason is that it is one planet. The hunger and hopelessness of the poor crops and general deprivation caused by global warming will push people to migrate to richer areas. Like the countries of the First World. The recent flood of migrants from Africa to Europe has poor crops behind. Some migrants are from conflict zones. However, those conflict zones owe at least some of their existence to global warming. It thus makes sense for the developed world to keep all of those refugees out by throwing money at their countries of origin.
However, the countries giving the money have been used to having this money buy them influence where they send it. They are made uncomfortable by the idea of altruistic giving. They are worried about the money being embezzled because they know that that is what had been happening in the past. The countries which would get the money want it in grants, not loans.
The reaction of caretaker PM Anwarul Haq Kakar, who asked for Pakistan to get its fair share, because it was affected by global warming, showed another problem with governments. Third World governments, like Pakistan, have all gone blithely into the debt trap, which is how the Third World has been controlled after colonialism. Now they see the Damage and Loss Fund as their path towards getting the foreign exchange necessary to service that trap.
The problem with all countries, whichever World they might belong to, is that their thinking is purely nationalistic. There are two problems there. First, relatively minor, is that national boundaries do not necessarily coincide with geography sufficiently for one country to say that another’s problems are its own. To take a local example, if one concedes that smog from burning crop stubble is contributing to the smog in the Indus Plain, it is not really relevant whether the Indian or Pakistani peasant is responsible.
Second, more important, is that all countries have to cooperate. Oil producers are right as nations to defend their right to sell their product. But what if there is nobody to buy, as will happen if the sale continues? Similarly, First World countries are right to be careful of their money, but what is the point of saving that money if the world goes down?
The capitalist mantra, expressed in the movie Wall Street by Michael Douglas’s seminal character, Gordon Gecko, that “Greed is good”; will not work. Unfortunately, COP28 did not identify a new mantra which would work.
