This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including leaked documents proving that the COP28 presidency planned to use the summit to push for oil and gas deals with foreign nations and a new study on air pollution casualties in Europe.
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1. COP28 Presidency Planned to Use Climate Summit For Fossil Fuels Deals, Documents Show
The United Arab Emirates planned to use COP28 meetings to pitch fossil fuels deals to foreign governments, leaked documents obtained by the non-profit Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and the BBC showed.
The cache of internal records leaked by a whistleblower and published Monday shows that COP28 president, Sultan Al Jaber had plans to quietly raise oil and gas commercial interests during climate meetings with China, Germany, Egypt, and 12 other nations ahead of the summit, which starts on 30 November.
The more than 150 pages of briefing notes include plans to push for a petrochemical deal in Brazil and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Germany. One document drawn up by Adnoc and state-owned renewable energy company Masdar shows how the UAE intended to tell fellow oil-producing nations Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that “there is no conflict between the sustainable development of any country’s natural resources and its commitment to climate change.”
Read more here.
2. Rich Nations Pledge $260 Million For Climate Loss and Damage Fund on COP28 Opening Day
Delegates gathering in Dubai for the opening day of COP28 on Thursday approved a framework for a fund to help developing countries deal with the harm caused by global warming, with wealthy nations pledging to contribute at least $260 million, surpassing the minimum threshold of $200 million required to initiate operations.
The United Arab Emirates, COP28’s host, and Germany pledged $100 million, respectively. The UK said it would contribute $50 million, Japan $10 million, while US climate envoy John Kerry said the Biden administration will provide $17.5 million. Developed countries have also called on high-emitting nations which are not fully developed, such as China and Saudi Arabia, to make contributions to the fund as well.
Read more here.
3. Half of 500,000 Air Pollution-Related Deaths in EU in 2021 Could Have Been Avoided, Study Shows
More than half a million people living in the European Union died from health issues directly linked to toxic pollutants exposure in 2021, as concentrations remained well above internationally-recognised safe levels, a new study has found.
New data on 41 European countries published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) last week suggests that stricter air quality regulations could have prevented about half of these deaths, most of which – about 293,000 – were linked to exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) above World Health Organization’s (WHO) guideline level of 5 µg/m3.
Concentrations above WHO’s guideline level of 10 µg/m3 of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), mainly deriving from cars and trucks as a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, were responsible for approximately 69,000 deaths, while concentrations above 70 µg/m3 of ozone (O3), a gas that forms above the Earth’s surface considered extremely threatening to human health, killed another 27,000 people.
Read more here.
4. COP28 Sponsors Failed to Commit to UN-Backed Net-Zero Targets, Analysis Finds
Most sponsors of the UN climate talks in Dubai have made no commitments to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions in line with net-zero targets set by the United Nations, according to a new report.
Carried out by Spendwell and published this week, the analysis ranked the climate commitments of 24 public, private, and state-owned companies sponsoring COP28, based on the independent, UN-backed Science Based Targets initiative as well as Climate Group’s RE100 and EP100 programmes, all of which require “significant commitments to action by corporations” and involve “rigorous, scientifically guided and independently approved goal- and target-setting.”
Read more here.
5. Brazil to Propose Conservation Fund for Tropical Rainforests at COP28
Brazil is set to launch a global conservation fund to protect tropical forests such as the Amazon and offer compensation to residents and landowners affected by deforestation at COP28, the country’s top climate diplomat has announced.
At the COP28 summit, which kicks off in Dubai on Thursday, President Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to propose a fund dedicated to tropical forest conservation efforts across 80 countries, according to Brazil’s Secretary for Climate, Energy and Environment André Corrêa do Lago, who presented the initiative last week at a meeting with seven other Amazon rainforest countries.
“At COP28, we’re going to have the beginning of a very important new stage. What has to be done will be debated first by the countries that have tropical forests,” he said.
Read more here.
