Greenpeace says COP28 is for making oil and gas the past

Kaisa Kosonen, Greenpeace, “This is truly a unique moment in time”

Greenpeace is always the thorn in a polluter’s or whale hunter’s side: Looming over the 28th UN Climate Conference (COP28) is whether governments will finally heed the calls, that grow stronger by the day, to phase out fossil fuels and deliver on climate justice, writes Greenpeace.

“While the causes and consequences of climate change have never been felt so deeply, the solutions have never been more in reach. The question is no longer how but when? Those serious about a livable planet have the tools needed to deliver the climate action needed: COP28 must agree to end the fossil fuel era,” says Greenpeace. 

Greenpeace’s wish list for COP28 in the UAE:

• For the Paris Agreement warming limit to be kept within reach, the COP28 decision text must hold an uncompromised commitment to a just and rapid phase out of all fossil fuels, with an immediate end to new coal, oil and gas. 
• The Global Stocktake must conclude with outcomes that kick-start transformative action across the board to limit temperatures to 1.5ºC and respond to increasing climate impacts with justice.
• A credible finance package that responds to growing needs is essential. It must include the launch of a new Loss and Damage Fund, and move us closer to making polluters pay for the destruction and harm they have caused.

“This is truly a unique moment in time. Solutions are now here, bigger and cheaper than ever before, ready to replace fossil fuels and bring us greater security.  But it won’t happen fast enough unless governments regulate oil, coal and gas out of the way. COP28 can be the turning point, when governments act on the science, commit to protecting their own citizens, and agree to make fossil fuels history,” says Kaisa Kosonen, Head of the Greenpeace COP28 delegation.

“In yet another year of record temperatures, delaying climate action would be catastrophic for the communities for whom navigating the impacts of the climate crisis is a daily reality,” says Ghiwa Nakat, Executive Director, Greenpeace MENA.

Ghiwa Nakat, Greenpeace MENA

“The COP28 Presidency stated that reducing fossil fuels is both inevitable and essential, but we now need to see actions that support what we already know to be necessary – a total phase out of fossil fuels. We need to take this ambition seriously and agree to the equitable phaseout of all fossil fuels including oil, gas and coal – and for the worst fossil fuel polluters to be held responsible for the crisis they have caused.

“People with the least resources to defend themselves are immersed in a constant struggle for survival: farmers seeing their harvests fail, desert nomads whose oases are disappearing, Ahwari women in the marshlands of Southern Iraq whose livelihoods have been devastated by drought,” says Nakat. “Every passing day without real change becomes a sentence of hardship or even death for these communities. Ending this suffering is the essence of climate justice.”

From what I have learned by attending climate events is that COP isn’t where decisions are really made and where action is taken. It’s a media and political spectacle. What happens at COP28 is when the work has been done – work that has been going on the year previous with teams and boots on the ground in various UN working groups. Still, I hope Greenpeace does like it always does – it’s a group that pushes the envelope a little further to some reality that the planet can live with. The UN shows time and time again that it can’t be accountable for all its moving parts and it can’t always hold every nation’s interest at heart.

:: Briefing on Greenpeace COP28 demands

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