Responsibility and the complexities of climate leadership

Subject: Environment

Section: International conventions

Concept :

Over the last few weeks, there has been an increasingly vocal campaign to unseat the President-Designate of COP28, Minister Sultan Al Jaber of the host nation, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Background

This includes a recent letter from United States and European parliamentarians calling for his removal on the grounds that he is CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
As representatives of developing countries in the climate change front line, and as leaders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 58 of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries hosting 1.5 billion of the world’s poorest people, we know only too well the urgency of the climate challenge.
We have endured climate-related economic losses of $500 billion in the last two decades alone.

This is a journey of unity

However, recognizing that this journey, towards a clean energy future, is one we must embark on together.
Fossil fuel-dependent economies are critical to these efforts, and they clearly have a more difficult task defining their energy transition strategy.
It is important to avoid division and continue to engage the fellow parties at COP28 and elsewhere on the best way forward for their economies and for the planet.
Finance will be crucial for COP28.

Debt is a barrier

Many of the nations are crippled by unsustainable debts, including debts which are becoming unpayable due to climate damages largely caused by emissions elsewhere.
Rather than going one by one over the financial cliff, we urgently need a collective approach which recognises the debt problem and the barrier it now poses to clean energy investment and climate adaptation.
Sovereign wealth funds and multilateral development banks (MDBs) could assist in de-risking restructured debts and insuring re-issued climate bonds,
The UAE leadership for a clean energy target starting in 2025, transforming the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company into the Abu Dhabi Clean Energy and Grid Company by 2030, and towards global financial reform including of the International Monetary Fund.
The Loss and Damage fund that was secured last year in Sharm El-Sheikh must not be just be another empty bank account, and fossil fuels-dependent economies can demonstrate their commitment to a shared future by making subscriptions to support funding for climate damages in the most vulnerable countries, well in advance of the COP.
Holding COP28 in the UAE, and with Sultan Al-Jaber as COP President-Designate, may well be an opportunity to engage the fossil fuels industry to make some significant and quantifiable commitments to emissions cuts and climate action in general.

Climate Vulnerable Forum

The Climate Vulnerable Forum is an international cooperation group of developing countries tackling global climate change.
The CVF was founded by the Maldives government before the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which sought to increase awareness of countries considered vulnerable.
United Nations agencies collaborate in implementing activities linked to the CVF with the UNDP, the lead organization supporting the forum’s work.
The CVF was formed to increase the accountability of industrialized nations for the consequences of global climate change.
Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan are its members, whereas India is one of the observer states.