Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK.

I'm Del Irani, it's great to have your company.

In December 2023, an agreement was reached at the UN climate change conference or COP28.

It calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

The agreement has been widely accepted as an historic milestone,

but its effectiveness to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average remains uncertain.

So, what exactly did COP28 achieve?

And what's the next steps in mitigating against climate change?

Joining me now to talk more about this is Dr. Jonathan Pershing.

He's the Environment Program Director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,

and a veteran climate negotiator.

He's worked under four presidents.

And most recently, he was the Deputy Special Envoy for Climate at the US State Department until 2022.

Dr. Jonathan Pershing, welcome to the program. Great to have you with us.

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

So, the COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, describe the agreement reached at the summit

calling for transitioning away from fossil fuels, as historic.

Do you agree with that assessment? Why was it historic?

Well, interestingly enough, we've never in the 30 years of doing this negotiation,

ever had a text, which explicitly noted that we would need to transition away from fossil fuels.

So, the fact is that this being the first time, it's absolutely historic.

Now, I think the question is less about whether it's an historic statement,

and more whether the countries will comply with the commitment.

And that remains to be seen.

A number of countries are moving in that direction, but a number are not.

And we've continued to see fossil fuels rise over the last 30 years.

So, this statement is a departure from that.

And in that sense, historic where implementation is going to matter.

There were a lot of concerns about the UAE hosting COP28.

And I would say, I would argue warranted concerns.

I mean, they're one of the world's top 10 oil producing nations.

They appointed the COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, who was the CEO of a state-owned oil company.

What were the some of the positives and negatives from this outcome?

I think you're right about there being both positives and negatives.

On the positive side, he countered a lot of pressure.

And in the pressure, I think there was more ambition than there might have been without the pressure.

And I'm not sure he would have been under such scrutiny had he not come from a country which had this kind of an oil background.

He also came from a country which has enormous wealth,

and was able to put some of that wealth on the table as commitments to address the climate crisis.

And that wealth was not just in the form of the adaptation commitment with the loss and damage funding.

It was also for technology, where the UAE has promised to be a major hundreds of billions of dollars,

a major investor in new technology.

And then finally, he's a businessman.

And to a certain extent, this is not so much about what governments do.

It's going to be about what private companies do to implement government policy.

And he starts from that place.

He starts from a place of what is a commercial opportunity?

And how do you manage it? And what do you need from governments to accelerate it?

So those are the upsides he brought that.

The downsides are also true.

I think that in many cases, there were conflicts of interest.

Could he bring the oil companies to the table? Well, he did.

He brought national oil companies, not just his own, but others around the world. I'm not sure others could have done it better.

But I certainly think there is less in the agreement

than might have been there had the oil majors not all been so concerned about the outcome.

For example, we didn't get a pledge to reduce the emissions from the combustion of the oil and gas,

the burning of it for power or for transportation. That's not part of the agreement.

And the host country for COP29 in 2024 is Azerbaijan, which is, of course, also an oil producer.

What influence do you think that oil companies are having on these UN conferences?

So, I think you have to disentangle some things here.

Almost every country in the world is a major consumer of oil and gas, and in many cases, coal.

We wouldn't say that no country can serve in this capacity.

We would say that those countries have to manage the transition away from those fuels.

So, we had a meeting before this in Egypt, also a pretty big gas producer.

We had a meeting before that in England, in Glasgow,

actually a major producer in the North Sea, a major oil and gas producer.

And so, we need really to figure out not so much whether a producing country is really the target of opprobrium,

but really can it transition.

Can it demonstrate a transition?

I don't think any of them have so far.

And that includes quite frankly, the United States, which is the world's largest gas producer.

It also has not figured out how to fully transition away from those fuels.

So, let's talk about the transition or the importance of it

because the UN Environment Program released a report saying

emissions of greenhouse gases increased by 1.2%, from 2021 to 2022.

And if countries don't quickly plan on, you know, for steep cuts,

global temperatures will rise nearly 3 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels in this century.

And we're talking about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius;

you know, which is the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Is that realistic, what we're aiming for? I mean, is that really achievable?

Given what we're already doing right now with emissions.

At the rate we are going, it is not achievable.

However, it is still technically possible for us to reverse our course, and get back on the right trajectory.

And I think that's the question we're grappling with.

Not is the current trajectory, right.

Everyone agrees the current trajectory is radically off course.

The question is, can we get back to the right trajectory, and what would we have to do.

That's the missing space still.

So, if we take a look at where we are now.

We're at about 1.2 degrees of warming, give or take some, above pre industrial levels.

And if you look at the kinds of impacts that the world is undergoing.

These are the wildfires in Maui.

These are the fires across the entirety of the Russian steps.

These are the fires in Australia.

These are the new flooding that we're seeing across Europe.

This is the significant drought that we've seen into southern Africa.

This is with 1.2 degrees. It gets worse at 1.5.

And then substantially worse at two. What happens at two?

We see sea level rise starting to be quite significant.

Coastal cities that are below about five meters may have much more frequent floods.

If you look at a city like Miami, it is already flooded on high tides on a regular basis today at 1.2.

Now imagine the same thing happening in New York and happening in Tokyo, and happening in London.

London built a barrier across the Thames River in order to protect the city.

That barrier has been raised many, many times.

When it was built, it was raised once a decade.

Now it's being raised several times a year. And that was with 1.2.

Imagine flooding all of London several times a year. That's two degrees.

You have been saying for a long time that the Indo Pacific is critical in,

and it plays a critical role in addressing global climate change.

Why is the Indo Pacific important when it comes to the global climate strategy?

So, there are many reasons but not least of them is the very size of the community.

The world's largest emitter right now is China.

The next largest is the US also in the Pacific region.

So, if you just add up the countries, they're enormous.

The next largest player in the world is India.

Again, if you kind of think about the Indo community, clearly a central part of that.

And in all of these cases rapidly growing.

Rapidly growing economies often tend to use more energy.

That energy is often fossil based, We don't think the living standard will stop.

So, we think that growth is inevitable.

The question is, can you do that growth with low carbon? The answer is you can.

We are seeing some countries beginning to make the transition with much, much lower carbon demand.

So far, that has not been the case for most of the Indo-Pacific.

And the question is, can they shift?

And what will it take to help them shift?

And how do the advanced economies in the region contribute to that shift in a way that accelerates the outcome?

What did you make of China's contribution at COP 28?

Do you think that they're going far enough when it comes to, you know, addressing climate change?

I mean, what have they done so far?

So, I think again, it's worth breaking it out. In the first instance, they agreed to all of the text in the agreements.

They didn't block it. The agreements talk about a transition away from fossil fuel.

They're not an oil producer, but they're a major coal user, and their transition would be in coal. And they agreed.

They agreed the language of tripling of renewables,

they agreed to language around doubling of efficiency,

they agreed to language around non CO2 gases.

So, here's a whole set of things, which for the first time,

China's committed to in a formal international obligation. That's significant.

At the other end, China did not sign on and push the rest of the world for a fossil fuel phase out with a date.

China could have pushed it and really didn't choose to do that.

With that having been said, China is also one of the world's largest contributors to development assistance.

It does it through its Belt and Road Initiative.

It does it through the People's Bank of China,

it does it through the other Chinese investment institutions,

but it is not a contributor under the UN system.

It is not a contributor to the loss and damage fund.

It's not a contributor to some of these other instruments that are multilateral through that process.

So, it's playing, but it's kind of playing in parallel.

It's not so much playing in community in quite the same way.

What do you think about Japan's commitment at COP28?

So, I think Japan has been a very important place.

Right. So, I think you want to look at the G7 meeting, which Japan hosted just this past year.

And the language in the G7 that calls for reaffirming the language of 1.5, and the Paris Agreement.

That shows up in the G20 and that shows up in the COP.

And Japan had an active role in creating that particular outcome. So very positive.

At the other end, Japan's been one of the leaders in some technologies, investing heavily in something like hydrogen,

which is the potential replacement for natural gas that has zero emissions. Again, very positive.

But in other ways Japan has been a laggard.

Japan has been much slower to move itself off of fossil fuels than every other G20 or G7 country.

What does Japan need to do to really, you know,

step up and stand out as a leader in the Indo Pacific when it comes to,

you know, leading the way in the fight against climate change?

So, Japan is actually a fascinating case study It imports coal from Australia,

it imports gas from the United States, it imports oil from the Middle East.

Japan actually has an enormous balance of payments that goes out of the country to pay for its energy supply.

So, in that sense, you'd think that Japan would be way ahead of the curve

in seeking to replace its imports of fossil fuel with domestic supply. What are its domestic options?

Well, it has significant offshore wind,

it has significant potential for floating solar,

it has real potential for geothermal.

It's not doing those things at the rate that it might.

And in some sectors, like in transportation,

it's lost a lead that it had a decade ago with its hybrid vehicle fleet.

It's not moving as quickly into the electric vehicle fleet.

And countries like China, or companies like Tesla have moved forward much, much more quickly.

So, I think Japan's gonna have to play some catch up.

So, Dr. Pershing is 2024 progresses, and what is the most urgent climate issues that need to be addressed this year?

And after COP28, what in particular will be the next step and focus for the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan?

At that meeting, we're supposed to examine what the next pledge would be from donor countries

in terms of financial contributions to the global effort, for mitigation, and for adaptation.

That's been set so far at $100 billion per year,

and the donor countries think they're pretty close to having met it.

The formal results won't be in until the end of 2024.

But we think we're pretty close to having met it. But we've committed to doing more.

What will that be? That negotiation is in Azerbaijan.

The second negotiation is on what countries will bring to the table

at the national level to deliver on their commitments.

These are complicated things. They're called nationally determined contributions or NDCs.

The next round are due in 2025.

So, 2024 is the time during which you have to do the work at home.

So those are the two tasks. The world's got to stay on track.

We need more money, a lot more money, and we need more action, a lot more action.

And if we can do the two of those that would get us closer to being on track

to the 1.5 number that was agreed and reaffirmed in Dubai.

Thank you so much for joining us on the program.

It's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much.

According to NASA, the summer of 2023 was Earth's hottest since global records began.

Experts believe that records will continue to be broken

and Earth will keep heating up until we tackle climate change collectively...

The time to strengthen the pledges and take action is now.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company. I'll see you next time!