We Did Not Come to Sign Our Death Warrant

COP 28 has officially entered the “waiting game” stage, or as one delegate called it, the “waiting for the cows to come home” stage. As all but the discussions on Paris Agreement Article 6 went underground, many were left waiting for the release of new draft texts, with conjectures running high on possible landing zones.

Many also expressed confusion regarding the various channels through which groups and parties were reportedly being consulted. Talks were not only conducted by the Presidency and the co-facilitating ministers it appointed earlier in the week, but also UNFCCC Executive Secretary Stiell and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who had returned to Dubai. “A lot is bubbling under the surface,” summed up a seasoned delegate, “the question is when it will surface, and whether we will like it when it does.”

Reactions to the GST draft released late in the afternoon were fast and furious. Hopes that this text would include language calling for a phase out or down of fossil fuels were dashed. The text suggests instead a laundry list of actions parties “could” do, including:

• limitations on permitting new and unabated coal power generation;
• advancing abatement and removal technologies; and
• “reducing” consumption and production of fossil fuels to achieve net zero “by, before, or around 2050.”

Observers kept up the pressure. They formed a human chain to greet ministers walking towards late evening consultations of their responsibility and the lives and livelihoods at stake.

In their reactions to the text, many ministers stood equally firm. Several emphasized “We are beyond an à la carte restaurant.” Many developed and developing country ministers underscored the document falls “short, way short” of what they can accept. “We did not come here to sign our death warrant. We will not go silently to our watery graves” said ministers from small island developing states.

As tired delegates filed out of the heads of delegation consultation, they wondered how they could move on from the “meaningless list of options” – as one minister put it – in the short time that remains for COP 28.

View of the room during informal consultations on Article 6, paragraph 4, of the Paris Agreement