Fossil fuel, oil, methane: Here's what happened at Cop28 on Tuesday
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Energy was the theme at Cop28 on Tuesday, with announcements on methane emissions, cooling such as air conditioning and refrigeration, and nuclear fusion amidst the ongoing question around fossil fuel usage.
The UN's climate change summit Cop28 in Dubai has been dominated around the fossil fuel question. To some, like Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, committing to a reduction in the likes of oil and gas will suffice for now, but for others like former Irish president Mary Robinson, only a phase out will do when it comes to the language agreed among countries.
It has been a disastrous Cop if the obfuscation and stalling around fossil fuels is anything to go by, with Cop28 president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber casting doubt around the science of fossil fuel emissions in order to limit global warming, and a record number of fossil fuel delegates - more than 4,400 - attending the event.
Activists made themselves heard on Tuesday, demanding an end to the use of oil, gas, and coal. The protest was striking as protest is not as free in the United Arab Emirates as other previous hosts such as Glasgow.
According to a document seen by Reuters that would be presented as an option for a final deal by the world's countries at the end of Cop28, one of three text options presents "an orderly and just phase-out".
This would mean richer countries would be compelled to phase out fossil fuels before others. A second text draft suggests "accelerating efforts towards phasing out unabated fossil fuels", while a third does not mention phasing out at all.
The difference between "phasing down" and "phasing out" has been the source of contention for governments across the world, with the likes of Ms Robinson and environmental activists calling for their complete elimination in order to have any shot of keeping global warming to 1.5C as outlined in the Paris Agreement of 2015.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which published the Decadal State of the Climate 2011-2020 at Cop28 in Dubai, warned ice melt and sea level rise was “turbo-charged” over the past 10 years.
Glaciers thinned by about 1m per year, considered an unprecedented rate, according to the WMO. In real terms, this means long-term repercussions for water supplies for many millions of people, it said as it unveiled the report.
The last decade was 1.1C above 1850 to 1900 average, while the warmest six years on record globally were between 2015 and 2020. Each successive decade since the 1990s has been warmer than all previous decades, the data show.
Six of the biggest dairy producers in the world will in the future disclose their emissions from methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Methane is produced from livestock as they burp and produce manure, and is a short-lived but highly intensive greenhouse gas emitter. Cutting methane has been the source of fierce political tussling in Ireland as the first and second so-called carbon budgets, which set targets for each sector to reduce emissions, were set in place.
The Dairy Methane Action Alliance, made up of Danone, Bel Group, General Mills, Lactalis USA, Kraft Heinz, and Nestle, will now start to report their methane emissions by the middle of next year as well as coming up with methane action plans by the end of 2024, following a pledge at Cop28.
Chris Adamo, vice president of government and public affairs at Danone, said: "There’s not one silver bullet. We have to look at this full spectrum of different options for farms across different geographies."
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