Strong global headwinds are blowing against the United Nations climate talks that start next week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Populist backlash against green policies, oil giants’ plans to expand production and the war in Gaza are all threatening to complicate countries’ ambitious pledges to reduce emissions, write Karl Mathiesen, Charlie Cooper and Zack Colman. And then there’s the specter of a second Trump presidency. The setbacks arrive as a new U.N. report released Monday warns that the world is on track for a catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius of warming compared with the preindustrial era, blowing past the 2-degree target set by the Paris climate accord. “The plans to achieve net zero are increasingly under attack,” said former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who set her country’s goal of reaching climate neutrality into law. The pushback is straining climate-conscious governments both in the developed and developing worlds. Center-right parties in Europe are turning against a speedy transition to cleaner energy, citing cost concerns. In the U.S., Republicans have vowed to gut out the Inflation Reduction Act, and the possibility exists that Donald Trump could abandon international climate pacts if he retakes the White House in 2024. The news Sunday that a far-right climate denier, Javier Milei, won Argentina’s presidency shows that reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be a hard sell in developing nations as well. Facing rising fuel and food prices, governments in poorer nations are struggling to vouch for costly climate policies — especially if they don’t get international aid to help them with it. The war in Gaza is also likely to spill onto the climate talks in Dubai, with officials expected to devote time discussing the regional security situation. President Joe Biden decided to skip the summit, in part due to the war between Israel and Hamas. “Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition,” said Kalee Kreider, a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore. The fossil fuel industry, meanwhile, is betting against a swift transition to renewable energy. Major oil giants like BP and Shell are investing billions of dollars into expanding production capability while walking back on their pledges to cut emissions. Not all bad news But others note that the world has made progress in recent years toward cutting carbon pollution. The cost of wind and solar declined rapidly in the last decade, making up more than 80 percent of new generation capacity in 2022. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are falling, while China’s may have begun to decline several years ahead of Beijing’s schedule. Some climate scenarios, including one from the recent National Climate Assessment, show that curbing warming well below 2 degrees is still possible, albeit a daunting task. “No year over the past three decades has been free of political, economic or health challenges,” said former U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa. “Time is a luxury we no longer have — if we ever did.”
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