Wording is a key battleground at the CoP28 climate conference in Dubai, with stakeholders digging in over whether fossil fuels be dialed down or phased out completely. It was ever thus.
Geralt/Pixabay
Word soup is the order of the day midway through the climate-change summit in the UAE, as stakeholders appear divided between those who want to limit fossil-fuel cuts to “unabated” oil and gas and those who want to include all fossil fuels in any agreement, whether they’re abated, unabated or both.
Other disputes are developing over whether to tie the growth of renewable energy to any proposed deal, digging in over whether any changes in policy be implemented “gradually” or “rapidly” over a specified period of time, be it “this decade,” “next decade,” “mid-century” (2050) or “by the end of the century.” Or not at all. “It won’t affect us personally or directly — let someone else deal with it.”
“Unabated” refers to the burning of fossil fuels where carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions are released directly into the atmosphere, which exacerbates global heating, which most delegates — though not all — now admit is a genuine crisis.
“Abated,” on the other hand, means — well, no one appears quite sure what it means. Loosely defined, “abated” refers to the burning of coal, oil and gas coupled with the capture and storage, permanent or semi-permanent, of the resulting greenhouse gases. “Carbon capture,” in other words.
Bottom line: There is no agreed-on definition of what “abated” really means. It’s just something to argue about. And if climate conferences have proved one thing in recent times, it’s that people like to argue.
It doesn’t matter how much carbon dioxide is stored, the optimists say, just so long as some is. Regardless of whether countries agree to “phase down” or “phase out” fossil fuels, the production and use of fossil fuels will “drop dramatically.”
It’s already too late, climate realists say: This is no time for semantics.
Aren’t you glad you asked?
Some facts are unassailable — except, of course, to those who choose to dispute them.
Fossil fuels are the single largest contributor to present-day global heating and are responsible for most of the cumulative historical emissions.
Furthermore, continued expansion of oil and gas development will “lock in” future emissions, according to scientists who have testified before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Their findings represent a “large consensus” of scientific opinion, according to published reports; further development of oil and gas fields — as has been decided by several countries already — is “incompatible” with keeping temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold agreed to at the 2015 Paris summit.
“Large consensus” or no, the experts are divided — if one looks hard enough.
Dr. Alaa Al Khourdajie, a respected climate scientist and research fellow at Imperial College London, has said these disagreements emphasize the need to be “transparent” and “crystal clear” about what abated fossil fuel really means, in the same way a “clear” and “obvious” error by a match official at a Premier League soccer match be overturned by instant video replay (though, in practice, that hasn’t worked as expected).
So far, it’s about as clear as mud.
“There is a lack of clarity about what counts as unabated and what counts as abated,” Dr. Khourdajie told Carbon Brief, a UK-based website that specializes in the science and policy of climate change. “Largely due to the absence of agreed definitions in the underlying literature at the time of (these) negotiations.”
Again, aren’t you glad you asked?
The CoP28 climate conference concludes this weekend.
