Air Date: Week of December 8, 2023

From left: Bharrat Jagdeo, Vice President of Guyana; Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Marina Silva; Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President; Indonesian President Joko Widodo; and Razan Al Mubarak, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The leaders gathered on December 2, 2023, during the Nature Session as part of COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo: Stuart Wilson, COP28, CC BY-SA 2.0)

As the UN Climate Summit in Dubai heads towards its scheduled final day on Tuesday, December 12, delegates have yet to achieve consensus for the Global Stock take. That’s a report on progress meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aspires to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. A majority of delegates and climate advocates say there is insufficient progress to meet those goals and want COP28 to find consensus to adopt additional measures. Many nations and NGOs are also decrying the failure to fully fund climate adaptation for poor nations.

Transcript

CURWOOD: Nearly 100,000 attendees descended into Dubai for the COP28 UN climate summit, where delegates are still trying to come together for the Global Stock take. That’s a progress report on how well the world is working to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aspires to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
So far more than 110 of the nearly 200 countries at COP28 have agreed to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by the end of this decade.
Helena Spiritus is the global lead for oil and gas transition at the World Wildlife Fund.

António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General speaks at the G77 and China Leaders’ Summit during COP28 in Dubai on December 2, 2023. (Photo: Mahmoud Khaled, COP28, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

SPIRITUS:. If we are going to keep to 1.5. If we are going to be able to reach our objectives with this cop, we have to see fossil fuels being out of the energy matrix and renewable energies, replacing them in the energy matrix. This has to happen. And at this COP where we finally have energy and fossil fuels at the center stage. We cannot have half measures, we cannot have half words. The science is very clear. What we have to do now and it's very urgent.

DOERING: Another voice is Liane Schalatek who says the COP urgently needs to address the failure to fully fund adaptation for poor countries. She is the Associate Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

At COP28, some activists and delegates also expressed environmental concerns about the war in Gaza and called for a ceasefire. (Photo: Media Ninja, Flickr, CC BY NC 2.0)

SCHALATEK: What we've seen here is a lack of ambition in finance pledges. Where we need trillions and billions, we've got so far millions. That's inadequate, it's unjust and it's an insult to the communities in the Global South, who need support now, not eventually, and need substantial support, not peanuts.

Links

Learn more about COP28.

Listen to WWF: COP28 - Week 1 in Review on December 6

Climate Action Network International press conference on December 6