Tag: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

What Does the 1.5 C Marker of Global Warming Mean?

Our planet’s hottest January on record also helped global warming pass a different, unwelcome milestone, according to data released on Thursday by the European Union climate monitor: Over the past 12 months, the average temperature worldwide was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than it was at the dawn of the […]

Read More

John Kerry Bows Out as U.S. Climate Envoy

John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate, plans to step down from the Biden administration by spring, according to two people familiar with his plans. Mr. Kerry, 80, has served as the president’s top diplomat on climate change since early 2021, working to cajole governments around the world to aggressively cut their planet-warming greenhouse […]

Read More

Blue Carbon Is One of Many Companies Inking Carbon Market Deals

First, the little-known Emirati company set its sights on a forest the size of Maine. Then, another one that was big as South Carolina. After that, it focused on a chunk of land the size of Puerto Rico. As the oil-rich emirate of Dubai prepared to host this year’s United Nations-sponsored climate summit, the company, […]

Read More

Brazil’s Congress Weakens Protection of Indigenous Lands, Defying Lula

Brazilian officials served up an array of plans and figures at the recent COP28 climate summit in Dubai, presenting itself as a world leader, on track to protect its forests and the people who live there. But on Thursday, Brazil’s Congress approved a law that threatens Indigenous people’s rights to most of the land they […]

Read More

Oil Producers Back Climate Deal Despite Fossil Fuel Language

Oil industry executives on Wednesday said they more or less backed the agreement coming out of the United National climate summit in Dubai, despite its language calling for “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” “We support the outcome of COP28,” said a spokesman for Shell, Europe’s largest energy company. Eni, the Italian energy giant, praised the […]

Read More

What Came Out of COP28

It took 28 years of climate negotiations for world leaders to agree to wean the global economy from the principal source of climate change: the burning of fossil fuels. “We’re finally naming the elephant in the room,” said Mohamed Adow, a climate campaigner from Kenya. It happened at the tail end of the hottest year […]

Read More

At COP28, an Oil Man Got a Deal on Quitting Oil

It was an unlikely scene: Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of one of the world’s biggest oil companies, stood before negotiators from nearly 200 nations on Wednesday and heralded a major new climate agreement that pledges to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels. In language reminiscent of an award acceptance speech, Mr. Al Jaber […]

Read More

Two Words That Could Change the World

They are just two little words. They appear on just one page of an 11,000 word document. But the inclusion of the phrase “fossil fuels” in the final agreement from COP28 marks a potentially trajectory-altering moment in the fight against climate change. The global pact calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, […]

Read More

What’s Missing from the COP28 Climate Deal

The global challenge of phasing out fossil fuels The COP28 climate summit wrapped up a few hours ago with a compromise agreement that calls on nations to move away from fossil fuels. But the deal still gives energy-exporting giants like Saudi Arabia plenty of leeway to continue drilling and presents countries and investors with the […]

Read More

Nations at COP28 Climate Summit Agree to Move Away From Fossil Fuels

For the first time since nations began meeting three decades ago to tackle climate change, diplomats from nearly 200 countries agreed to a global pact that explicitly calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” like oil, gas and coal that are dangerously heating the planet. The sweeping agreement, which comes during the hottest year in […]

Read More

The Climate Summit Starts to Crack a Tough Nut: Emissions From Food

It’s hard enough for world leaders to figure out the future of coal, oil and gas in a warming world. What about the future of bread and milk? The food system accounts for around 30 percent of global greenhouse emissions from farm to fork to garbage dump, and it is a major culprit in biodiversity […]

Read More

The Results of the Dubai Climate Conference Won’t Slow Global Warming

I live at the base of Basalt Mountain, an ancient volcano that tops out at nearly 11,000 feet in the Roaring Fork Valley of western Colorado. An eruption 10 million years ago contributed to the contours of the landscape. In the mornings I drink strong coffee from a U.S. Forest Service mug, and I look […]

Read More

Countries Most at Risk Call Proposed Climate Agreement a ‘Death Warrant’

Environmental groups and negotiators from countries that are most vulnerable to climate disasters assailed a draft of a final agreement, made public at the United Nations climate talks on Monday, that fell short of calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels. The long-awaited draft said nations “could” take actions to slash greenhouse gas emissions, including […]

Read More

Countries Most at Risk Call Proposed U.N. Climate Agreement a ‘Death Warrant’

Environmental groups and negotiators from countries that are most vulnerable to climate disasters assailed a draft of a final agreement, made public at the United Nations climate talks on Monday, that fell short of calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels. The long-awaited draft said nations “could” take actions to slash greenhouse gas emissions, including […]

Read More

The COP28 Climate Summit Has Gadgets, Networking and Even a Light Show

There are two climate summits taking place in Dubai. One is the gathering of bleary-eyed, sharp-tongued diplomats parsing over every word and comma in the international declaration that is expected in the coming days. The bigger event is happening outside the negotiating rooms. It’s part trade fair, part protest stage, part debate forum. It’s where […]

Read More

Saudi Arabia Is Trying to Block a Global Deal to End Fossil Fuels, Negotiators Say

Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement to fight global warming at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels, negotiators and observers said. The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a […]

Read More

Azerbaijan Is Expected to Host the U.N. Climate Summit in 2024

The next United Nations climate change summit appears set to take place in Azerbaijan, a spokesman for the country said Saturday, resolving a bitter, monthslong political standoff over which nation should host the talks in 2024. Azerbaijan would be the third major oil and gas producer in a row to host the annual U.N. negotiations […]

Read More

At Dubai’s Climate Summit, Activists Test the Limits

A woman dressed as a dugong, a rare marine mammal, beseeched passers-by to end the burning of fossil fuels. Protesters wiped away tears as they recited the names of Palestinians killed by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. And an exiled Emirati dissident joined a panel discussion about human rights via a shaky video connection, speaking out […]

Read More

OPEC Leader Tells Members to Block Any Climate Summit Deal to Curb Fossil Fuels

The head of the OPEC oil cartel, alarmed that nations gathered at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai are considering an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, has directed the group’s members to scuttle any deal that would affect the continued production and sales of oil, gas and coal. In a letter dated Dec. […]

Read More

One After Another, Russia Blocks Candidates to Host Next Climate Summit

At the annual United Nations climate summit, governments are supposed to reach a consensus around how to avert catastrophic climate change. So far, they can’t even agree on where to hold next year’s conference. Tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine have hampered the ability of diplomats meeting in the United Arab Emirates for this year’s […]

Read More

World Bank President Ajay Banga Addresses Climate Change

For years now, heads of state and government, academics and development experts have been calling on the World Bank to lead in the fight against climate change. For too long, they say, the international lender had ignored the growing threats posed by rising temperatures and sea levels, been too conservative with its lending to developing […]

Read More

What does ‘unabated’ mean for fossil fuels

There’s no shortage of jargon in the global climate talks in Dubai. But one particular word is taking central stage, and a fierce debate is brewing over “unabated.” Sultan Al Jaber, the president of this year’s COP, has said he hopes that all countries would agree to transition to “an energy system that is free […]

Read More

U.S. Supports ‘Largely’ Phasing Out Fossil Fuels, John Kerry Says at Climate Summit

John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Wednesday that the United States supported a phaseout of fossil fuels, his clearest statement yet on America’s position on one of the most intractable issues under debate at the United Nations climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mr. Kerry said that “largely” ending […]

Read More

Can Carbon Capture Live Up to the Hype?

World leaders at the annual United Nations climate talks have battled for years over whether they should “phase out” fossil fuels like coal or just phase them “down.” Now, another phrase has taken center stage at this year’s summit in Dubai: Should countries agree to end the use of “unabated” fossil fuels? That peculiar word […]

Read More

It’s Big Oil vs. Science at the COP28 Climate Summit

With fresh promises to cut methane and billions of dollars in new commitments to help poor countries adapt to a warming planet, a sense of momentum and optimism pervaded the first days of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai. Now comes the hard part. Five days into the two-week conference, known as COP28, the […]

Read More

Got Climate Angst? At the U.N. Summit, There’s a Quiet, Spiritual Place.

Among the hubs for climate scientists, activists and fossil fuel lobbyists at the United Nations climate summit is a new addition this year: a place to pray. The first-ever Faith Pavilion, inaugurated by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, in a video message on Sunday, offers a space for meditation, daily […]

Read More

Renewable Energy Could Be a Casualty in the War on Inflation. Here’s Why.

A global campaign to tame inflation is hurting the fight against climate change by steering developing countries away from renewable energy, raising anxieties among the officials gathered at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai. Those officials say they support efforts by central bankers to bring down rising prices by raising interest rates. But in […]

Read More

As World Heats, Energy for Air-Conditioning Could Double by 2050

The future facing a warming planet: As global temperatures rise, more people will turn to air-conditioners to ward off the heat. But the rise in cooling buildings and other spaces, which is also driven by rising incomes, population growth and urbanization, means that the world could use more than double the electricity it does now […]

Read More

Harris Takes Forceful Tone With Israel in a Foray Into Mideast Diplomacy

Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to the Middle East over the weekend was both a major foray into wartime diplomacy and an effort to show that the administration is taking a harder line with Israel about the civilian toll of its war against Hamas. The message was aimed at leaders in the region as Israel […]

Read More

Global Carbon Budget Report Finds Fossil Fuel Emissions Still Rising

Despite years of commitments from countries to slash the emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, they are still on the rise. Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels is expected to rise by 1.1 percent in 2023 compared with 2022, scientists found in an extensive peer-reviewed analysis published this week. Researchers from […]

Read More

Climate Summit Leader Tries to Calm Uproar Over a Remark on Fossil Fuels

Simmering tensions around the decision to hold a global climate summit in a petrostate burst into the open on Monday when Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati oil executive who is leading the conference, launched into an angry public defense of his position on ending fossil fuel use. Mr. Al Jaber, who runs the state-owned oil […]

Read More