The Green Transition: Cop28 special feat. Ed Miliband and Thérèse Coffey
Weekly analysis of the shift towards a new economy.
Dear Readers,
Merry Copmass and a happy new climate agreement (?) from the New Statesman Spotlight team. As ever, you can find our policy coverage here.
We’ve got another dispatch from Dubai from Polly Bindman and Nick Ferris, who are on the ground at Cop28. For exclusive comments, they’ve tracked down Ed Miliband and none other than Thérèse Coffey, who’s attending the UN climate summit despite leaving her ministerial role some time ago. Apparently she really enjoys going. It’s like Milan Fashion Week for net zero politicos of all stripes, past and present.
Let’s get right into it.
Britain “is missing in action” – Ed Miliband speaks to the GT
By Polly Bindman and Nick Ferris
DUBAI - For high-level dignitaries attending Cop28, each day will likely follow a pattern: picked up and whisked from your air-conditioned hotel, with a chauffeur-driven private car, and into the cool negotiating room. For those who can afford it, Dubai specialises in luxury and convenience, with no need to even step into the heat outside.
But if those dignitaries were to actually cross the threshold of their hotel for more than the few-second walk to their cars, they would wince at the heavy smog that descends on the city most mornings. Cop28 is taking place just seven miles from the Jebel Ali Power Station, the world’s biggest gas-fired power station, which pumps out toxic pollution and carbon dioxide twenty-four hours a day.
The incongruence of hosting a climate conference in such an environment felt most acute on Sunday, which was dubbed “health day”, but saw air quality meters record 155 μg/m3 of PM2.5 pollution — far exceeding the 12 μg/m3 considered “safe” by the World Health Organisation.
During those first few days of Cop28 — when more than 100 global leaders descended on Dubai’s Expo City – much time could be spent celebrity-spotting. From the UK alone, a host of MPs and ministers appeared, along with Tony Blair, the former chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander, and the new foreign secretary, David Cameron.
“I have caught the bug – I enjoy it very much,” former environment minister Thérèse Coffey, told New Statesman Spotlight, when asked why she was in attendance at this climate conference (her fifth), despite losing her ministerial portfolio a few weeks before.
“Suddenly here is a forum where all countries and peoples with different needs and strengths converge,” she said. “There is a real chance to turn ambitions into action.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak used his fleeting (half-day) visit to remind the world he had scrapped a number of key net zero policies, advocating a “pragmatic” approach that does not “cost people thousands of pounds”.
Catching up with New Statesman Spotlight, shadow climate change and net zero secretary, Ed Miliband, said that for Labour, Cop28 has “been about building the bridges with everyone – from Brazil to China, to Spain, to the World Bank – to talk about how we can make sure that we can hit the ground running, if we win the election and we’re representing Britain at Cop29.”
Miliband said that it’s “really striking” the number of attendees that Labour has met that have said Britain is “missing in action” on climate, adding that the UK’s lack of leadership is “terrible not just for Britain, but for the world.”
When asked about the importance of including calls to “phase-out” fossil fuels in the final Cop28 cover text, a key policy document all 198 parties to the UNFCCC will take back to their governments, Miliband says that “pushing countries to sign up to a clear commitment to fossil fuel phase-out is, in my view, incredibly important”. He adds: “But you can only argue credibly for that if you’ve got a credible position at home”, noting that the inclusion of “phase-out” would “make a mockery of the current government's position”, which is to “extract every last drop”. By contrast, Labour has said it will ban licenses to explore new oil and gas fields.
Even if the UK is publicly retreating, most countries are calling for more ambitious action. This contributed to an air of cautious optimism in the early days of Cop28, which were buoyed by the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund to compensate low-income countries hit by extreme weather events, as well as an unprecedented pledge to triple global renewable capacity by 2030.
“I’ve been to a lot of Cops, and I have been very critical of their incrementalism, and the sense that they achieve nothing”, Warren Evans, envoy for the Asia Development Bank, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, told us on day three. “I'm much more optimistic today than I was a few weeks ago, and a whole lot more optimistic than I was a year ago”.
The latest draft of the Cop28 cover text — a key document set to drive global climate policy for the coming year — includes the language of “fossil fuel phase-out”, which is something that has never been seen before. Were these words to remain in place, it would be a big moment. Al Gore has said that calling to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity”.
But there is everything still to play for. Cop28 President Sultan Al Jaber found himself in hot water over old comments that there was “no science” behind calls for a fossil fuel phase-down; he quickly responded in an emergency press briefing that “the phase-out of fossil fuel is inevitable. In fact, it is essential.”
The word on the ground is that traditional fault lines over the inclusion of fossil fuel phase-out remain intact, with the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia firmly set against it. Other points of negotiation – notably a new global goal on adaptation – remain completely unresolved. With just a week to go, it will be up to the UAE Presidency to try and steer 198 sparring nations towards a satisfying outcome.
Polly Bindman and Nick Ferris are data journalists at Energy Monitor. Follow them on Twitter/X: pollybindman / nichferris
In Brief
The UK’s choice: Ian Cheshire, former CEO of Kingfisher and chair of the We Mean Business Coalition has written for us about the choice facing Rishi Sunak over climate action: it’s the past or our future. Two hundred businesses — including 85 British-based firms — have signed a later urging Cop28 leaders to commit to phasing out fossil fuels by the 2040s.
“We’ve made the weather a sort of Rottweiler on steroids”: Our sustainability reporter, Megan Kenyon interviews climate scientist Dr Fredi Otto on how we need to change our messaging and communicate the effects of climate change better.
High finance: Polly Bindman’s excellent data-driven piece shows how the UK is shirking its responsibilities when it comes to providing climate finance to developing countries. With this government? Surely not.
Terrifying report of the week goes to…: Global Tipping Points, summarised here. Scientists are raising the alarm bells about a serious of “non-linear” tipping points in “land, sea and air”, in which thresholds are met when climate change becomes self-sustaining, even if we ease off the original pressures.
See you next week.
***For more on how our advertising services can support your organisation, please visit our page on Spotlight Marketing Solutions or contact us at client.solutions@newstatesman.co.uk***
The Green Transition is produced by Spotlight, the New Statesman's online policy section and print supplement. Spotlight reports on policy for the people who shape it and the business leaders it affects. Explore our in-depth reporting and analysis here.
Thank you for reading.
Please send any news or comments to: jonathan.ball@newstatesman.co.uk