The recent Conference of the Parties is being hailed as both a historic success and an epic failure. So who really won the fossil fuel war at COP 28? The global agreement to phase down fossil fuels was heralded by the United Nations as the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era, while critics expressed disappointment that there was no mention of a phaseout, peak emissions, or capping investment.
While the deal fell far short of the fossil fuel phaseout that many were calling for, we came perilously close to getting nothing at all. Early drafts excluded any mention of fossil fuels, and subsequent drafts provided no timeline for the phasedown beyond achieving net zero around 2050. In overtime, the language of the final draft was adjusted to include a fossil fuel phasedown this decade and net-zero by mid-century.
The powerful cabal of petrostates and oil interests in control of COP 28 precluded the possibility of a phaseout in the final agreement. The details of their cynical scheme first emerged in 2022 and were confirmed late last summer when the Guardian published a leaked communications plan. It is now clear that the climate conference president and the COP28 host country hatched an elaborate plan to position carbon capture as a pretext to continue extracting hydrocarbons. They also invested millions of dollars in greenwashing campaigns that were intended to skew the narrative in favor of the fossil fuel industry.
The plan that was put in motion at COP 28 leveraged the fossil fuel industry’s considerable control over the COP process. Hundreds of carbon capture advocates at COP 28 amplified that control. These advocates were everywhere from high-level meetings to small side events. As reported by the Guardian, an analysis by the Centre for Environmental Law (Ciel) concluded that at least 475 carbon-capture lobbyists attended COP 28. That is in addition to almost 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists at this year’s climate conference. Lili Fuhr, the director of Ciel’s fossil economy programme, correctly predicted that this army of advocates could ‘blow a giant loophole’ in the COP 28 final agreement.
The carbon capture loophole
As the conference came to an end, Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the group of 39 small, developing island states (Aosis) took the microphone to say the final draft agreement includes a “litany of loopholes”.
Phasing out fossil fuels is the most important single step we can take to address the climate crisis. “There is overwhelming scientific evidence that we need to phase out all fossil fuels as rapidly as possible,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, a research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute and co-author of the UN Production Gap Report.
Despite the clear scientific consensus calling for immediate emissions reductions, the language in the COP 28 agreement is vague and leaves lots of wiggle room. Under the deal, each nation can choose its own path and for some, this includes ramping up fossil fuels with the promise of technological carbon removal at some point in the future. This is a critically dangerous loophole. Reliance on carbon capture and CO2 removal will not enable us to achieve the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement (keeping temperatures from climbing more than 1.5C above preindustrial norms).
At the Production Gap Report event, Neil Grant emphasized this point saying carbon capture technologies “do not replace the need for rapid and permanent reduction of fossil fuels. And they therefore really can’t be used as a justification for continued expansion of fossil fuel extraction.”
The science is clear, reducing and ultimately eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels is the only way we can keep the 1.5 C targets alive. “The fossil fuel emissions have to go down to zero,” said Fuhr, adding, “the principle should be real zero, and not just offsetting future speculative emissions.”
The abatement loophole
Petrostates succeeded in eliminating calls for a phaseout in favor of a phasedown of “unabated” fuels (ie without carbon capture), which has been described as putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.
The COP 28 final agreement specifically referred to the abatement and removal of carbon emissions using carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. Although almost all decarbonization scenarios involve abatement of CO2. The call to accelerate “abatement and removal technologies” was originally meant to apply to “hard-to-abate” sectors like cement and steel production. Its utility in the fossil fuel sector is premised on a phasedown and ultimately a phaseout of hydrocarbon production.
As reported by Brad Plummer in the New York Times, negotiators anticipated the outcome when they expressed concern that fossil fuel companies would “seize on that language to continue emitting at high rates while promising to capture the emissions later.”
Transitional fuel loophole
At the 11th hour the Russian delegation, with support from other petrostates, succeeded in introducing another giant loophole into the agreement. The sneaky inclusion of the words “transitional fuels” into the final draft, embraces natural gas as a means of ensuring “energy security”.
As reported by Climate Change News, Diann Black-Layne from Antigua and Barbuda reminded delegates at the closing meeting of COP 28, that coal, oil and gas are all fossil fuels. She called, “transitional fuel” a “dangerous loophole,” and she urged countries “to transition away from them”.
Profiting from polluting
The fossil fuel industry stands to massively profit from its control of much of the existing technological carbon capture infrastructure. This includes most of the 44 operating CCS facilities and many of the 27 direct air capture (DAC) plants. They also have a stake in many of the 130 DAC facilities in various stages of planning. In the US, the fossil fuel industry owns 6 of the 21 U.S. DAC development projects that have been approved for funding by the Department of Energy.
Carbon capture is a lucrative opportunity that benefits the fossil fuel industry in several ways. They get taxpayer dollars to extract carbon, and they profit from the sale of the carbon they extract (carbon credits). Most importantly they get a social license to keep their core business alive.
They also use captured carbon to extract more oil and gas through a process known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In the half century since this process has been developed it has produced tens of billions of barrels of oil which have released billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
The malfeasance of the fossil fuel industry knows no bounds
The fossil fuel industry’s positioning of technologies that capture or remove carbon is a colossal scam. At COP 28 they managed to switch the focus from phasing out fossil fuels to phasing down “unabated” fossil fuels and this seemingly minor shift in language has massive implications. The industry claims to be a part of efforts to address the climate crisis when they have known they are its root cause for decades.
They are inferring that they can remove emissions from the extraction and refining of oil, coal, and gas. They are not talking about the bulk of emissions that are generated when hydrocarbons are burned (Scope 3 emissions). Yet they know full well that they can not come close to capturing all of their own emissions let alone Scope 3 emissions.
Even in the very unlikely event that they were to achieve the impossible and install CCS technology on all fossil fuel extraction and refinement infrastructure, this would not address the far larger problem of Scope 3 emissions, which is the source of the vast majority of emissions.
In a Wired article Jonathan Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown succinctly summarized the sentiment of many when he said the fossil fuel industry is using carbon capture as a public relations stunt.
Rachel Cleetus, the climate and energy policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed Big Oil’s empty rhetoric at COP 28. “Fossil fuel and narrow political interests are choosing to obfuscate and water down the text being negotiated for the final Cop 28 agreement, despite the clarity science brings to the necessity of a phase-out. The reality is that CCS/CCUS cannot contribute meaningfully to emission reductions in this critical decade,” Cleetus said, adding, “The core, unavoidable task remains making deep, direct cuts in fossil fuel use. There are no escape hatches.”
The world is yet again being played by fossil fuels. This is another installment in the hydrocarbon industry’s long history of deception, and disinformation. Their self-serving efforts to justify pumping more oil and gas is a ruse plain and simple.
All is not lost, although it will be if we don’t act
Fossil fuel companies are embracing technologies that remove CO2 to extend the life of the hydrocarbon economy. It offers them what Fuhr describes as, “an easy way out, to cover up business as usual,” and even expand production.
Although the outcome is far from what many were calling for, COP 28 was not a complete failure. “Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in his closing speech. “Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay.”
The actions taken in the coming years will dictate whether COP 28 can be deemed a success. While CCS and CDR are necessary parts of a suite of climate action, abatement efforts and talk of transitional fuels can not take the place of phasing out coal, oil, and gas.
We have taken the first step in the right direction, but we must do more. We must also be ready to counter powerful energy interests as they will continue to use their tremendous wealth and influence to waylay progress.
Discover more from Change Oracle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
