COP28 Ends With Deal on Transition Away From Fossil Fuels

Reducing fossil fuels is the way to stop climate change, right? Maybe not. After the COP28 climate conference in Dubai last week, a new resolution removes the plan to reduce fossil fuels. 

Could that be because there is no research that shows that reducing fossil fuels will have the desired effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions? In a video conference leading up to the COP28, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Al Jaber said that the phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’ and asked for actual data showing that this would solve greenhouse gas emissions. He did not get a straight answer but he did get a lecture from former Irish president Mary Robinson. 

That is because most serious researchers know that increasing prosperity and quality of life in developed nations is what actually lowers emissions. The United States and Europe both saw emissions peak due to the use of affordable energy and China says that it too has peaked and none of those countries reduced oil or gas to achieve this. 

The new COP28 document does not mandate a reduction of fossil fuels but softens the language to a plan to reduce "consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero [carbon emissions] by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science." 

The EU is threatening to leave the COP28 because of this.

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