5 key questions to watch at COP28 in Dubai

Beginning Thursday, world leaders, climate negotiators, activists, corporations and lobbyists will gather in Dubai for the COP28 global climate summit. 

The annual United Nations conference serves both as a forum for nations to highlight progress and make announcements in the fight against climate change and as the stage for formal negotiations for global agreements on key climate issues.

This year, attendees could announce actions related to tackling planet-warming methane emissions and potential aid for nations on the front lines of climate change, and discuss global goals to reduce — or eliminate — fossil fuels, among other issues. 

Here are the key questions to watch at this year’s summit:

How is the world doing in the fight against global warming, and what comes next in that fight?

This year’s conference comes amid a “global stocktake” — an assessment by the world of how far it has come in the fight against climate change since 2015’s Paris Agreement, and how far it still has left to go.

The good news: The world has made progress since Paris.

A recent report from the United Nations (U.N.) found that prior to the agreement, greenhouse gas emissions were projected to increase by 16 percent in 2030. Now, they’re only projected to increase 3 percent.

The bad news: The world is still on track for significant warming, and the flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather that come with it. 

The U.N. report estimated that current pledges countries have made under the agreement would put the world on track for warming between 2.5 and 2.9 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit). That falls far short of the goals set of limiting warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius (2.7 or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which were aimed at avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. 

That projection is also where warming will be if climate pledges are met. A recent U.S. report projected that the world is actually on track to warm by between 2.5 and 4 degrees Celsius (4.5 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

“The next question is for the global community, ‘How do we then get on track?’” said Nate Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability.

Hultman, who previously worked on international climate issues for the Biden administration, said the world has to do this by stepping up ambition in its forthcoming 2035 climate pledges. 

He noted major countries are unlikely to unveil their 2035 goals at this time.

But he said that at this year’s conference, “what I think we should be looking for is very strong language around connecting the dots between ‘We’re not on track as a result of the global stocktake’ very precisely to 2035 … planning and target-setting.”

What will countries do about methane?

Methane is a planet-warming gas that is more than 28 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. It is responsible for about 25 percent of global warming and largely comes from the production and transport of fossil fuels, livestock and other agriculture and decaying waste in landfills. 

A senior State Department official told reporters earlier this month that the world’s largest methane emitters are expected to announce domestic actions to address methane emissions, particularly from the fossil fuel sector.

The official did not specify what those actions would be, but Reuters reported this week that the U.S. is expected to announce new methane rules for oil and gas this weekend, and Canada is expected to propose requiring a 70 percent emissions cut from its oil and gas industry by 2030. 

The administration official told reporters that they expect to announce funding to address methane that exceeds a $200 million goal that President Biden set forth last year. 

Special climate envoy John Kerry also said Wednesday that there would be a “major focus” on methane, calling action on the greenhouse gas “the easiest, quickest, fastest, cheapest way to begin to get gains against the warming.”

Will the world agree to triple renewable energy capacity?

In a recent joint statement, the U.S. and China said they would “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030,” doubling down on a similar pledge made by the G-20, a group of major economies that includes both nations. 

That effort could be more broadly adopted at this year’s climate summit, where it has the potential to be incorporated into a formal conference decision and signed onto by more nations.

Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions think tank, told reporters that a COP28 agreement would go beyond expanding the agreement to more countries. 

Including it in formal conference language also “grounds it in the process so there’s a level of follow-up and accountability to make sure there’s follow-through,” Guilanpour said. 

What does the future hold for fossil fuels?

The 2021 conference marked the first time a global climate summit decision explicitly mentioned fossil fuels — the biggest driver of planet-warming emissions. 

But whether to call for a “phasedown” or “phase out” of planet-warming fuels and what exactly to eliminate has been a point of contention, as not every country was on board with eventually calling for an end to fossil fuels.

So far, decisions in 2021 and 2022 have called for phasing down unabated coal power — or coal power that does not capture its planet-warming emissions — and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

A U.S. official told reporters that there wasn’t much difference between “phase down” or “phaseout” but also noted entirely different wording could be taken up as the world seeks consensus.

On the other hand, climate activists argue that the language is important — and say the world should work toward ending the use of fossil fuels. 

“The reason why there’s so much hemming and hawing over those words is because they do matter, and phase out is what we scientifically need to do,” said Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Energy Justice program. 

“We have to be scientifically bound here. So it does matter that it is phased out, and that’s what we’re aiming for,” Su said. 

Will agreements be made and commitments reached on climate aid?

A number of agreements and commitments could be made at the conference related to climate funds flowing from developed countries to low-income and climate vulnerable nations.

A proposal for how to set up a previously agreed-upon fund to compensate countries for climate damage will come up for consideration at the event. A U.S. official told reporters this month that they expect that proposal to be adopted, saying they had not heard of any countries opposing it. 

Under the proposal, the fund would be hosted by the World Bank on an interim basis and would be governed by a board made up of both developed and developing countries. 

Dan Lashof, director of the U.S. branch of the World Resources Institute, said the European Union is looking at making a significant pledge to the climate vulnerable fund.

He said there’s a “big question” about whether middle-income countries contribute. He noted that “if the US is not able to expand its commitments, it makes it much harder to ask other countries to step up.”

However, the U.S. is constrained by domestic politics, as Republicans generally have resisted putting money into climate efforts, and some are calling for major spending cuts in general. 

Beyond the climate compensation fund, Lashof said the conference could deal with issues related to financing efforts for the energy transition and to make the world more resilient to the extreme weather impacts of climate change.