As tension over the COP28 host and president’s promotion of fossil fuels at the November climate summit in the UAE continues to build, negotiators at pre-summit talks in Bonn, Germany, have yet to officially adopt an agenda for the two-week planning meeting scheduled to end Thursday. The fault lines are myriad, but one of the biggest points of conflict is the prominence of climate finance — financial support from wealthy nations to developing countries.
The role of fossil fuels, and the fact that COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, is openly promoting the continued use of fossil fuels, calling for “an energy system that is free of unabated fossil fuels” (emphasis added) is also a major point of tension. “It’s just like how tobacco lobbyists need to be kept out of conversations about cancer prevention,” Destination Zero head Catherine Abreu told the New York Times. “Fossil fuel interests actively work to co-opt our imaginations,” Ms. Abreu said. “Governments now can imagine a geo-engineered planet easier than a grow-out of renewables that already exist.” (Bonn: Climate Home; COP28: New York Times $)