Talks among nearly 200 nations in Dubai to decide on the scale of the world’s response to climate change just passed the halfway mark. Triumphant at times, dispiriting in other moments and always exhausting, the United Nations conference known as COP28 has brought more than 100,000 people from governments, corporations and every strand of society to the United Arab Emirates. Vulnerable populations are fighting for a U.N. text that hails the certain end to producing and burning fossil fuels for energy, by far the biggest sources of climate pollution. On the other side are Saudi Arabia and other oil producers pushing for the conference to focus on the adoption of technology that can eliminate emissions — instead of trying to impose a phase-out of oil along some timeline. Then there are India, China and other countries that rely on coal to power their megacities. Somewhere in the murky middle is the United States, with a Democratic president who has staked serious political capital on climate action. The U.S. wrestles with its own giant oil and gas industry, along with the political imperative of keeping fuel prices tolerable. European countries, for their part, are balancing energy security against climate policies and a history of climate activism — backsliding on some of their loftiest climate goals. Reporting from Dubai, POLITICO journalist Zack Colman told Power Switch that as negotiations start a crucial second week, overlapping issues have yet to be worked out, including the search for any consensus around fossil fuels. Aside from that, climate adaptation goals are being established. The hard part is that, at this stage, not a lot can be traded away easily through negotiation — and not in the typical fashion, Zack said. “It can’t unstick a whole lot by throwing money around.” The biggest money issue was resolved on Day 1 as delegates agreed to a framework for creating a large global fund to help nations deal with disasters. As government ministers come to town in the final big push of COP28, they’re asked to bring honest assessments and plans that can get the world on track to hit global warming limits set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. The galloping pace of rising climate pollution has slowed over the past eight years, but not fast enough to stave off major climate disasters. Speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry put it plainly: “Nobody should be going backwards." Wars in Europe and the Middle East have made it harder for some U.S. allies to maintain their climate policies. The U.K. government signed off on drilling for more North Sea oil and gas, and Germany is restarting coal-fired power stations ahead of the winter. “I worry a little bit that in various places around the world there’s too much business as usual,” Kerry said, when asked about the energy decisions in the U.K. and Germany. “There’s not enough concentrated effort to all help each other with this transition.”
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