Sultan Al Jaber, the president of COP28, has incorrectly claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting have revealed in an exclusive widely covered by other outlets. The article continues: “Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development ‘unless you want to take the world back into caves’.

The comments were ‘incredibly concerning’ and ‘verging on climate denial’, scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on 21 November.” The Times says “the comments were widely condemned by campaigners and scientists at COP28, where many countries, including the UK and those in the EU, are calling for a phasing-out of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels, meaning those burnt without CCS devices, which capture carbon and store it.”

Separately, the Guardian reports on comments made by former US vice-president Al Gore who has said that an agreement by countries at COP28 to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity”. It would be a “welcome surprise” if world leaders agreed at the climate talks to call for an end to fossil fuels, but such a declaration would have “enormous impact” upon the world, Gore told a meeting yesterday, according to the paper.

Meanwhile, BBC News reports that it has “learned” that the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting CO28, is “massively ramping up” its own oil production. The outlet continues: “The United Arab Emirates’ state oil firm Adnoc may drill 42% more by 2030, according to analysts considered the international gold standard in oil market intelligence. Between 2023 and 2050, only Saudi Arabia is expected to produce more. Adnoc says projections show capacity to produce oil, not actual production. It said it had already clearly stated plans to boost its production capacity by 7% over the next four years. The firm said it was widely accepted that some oil and gas would be needed in decades ahead and that it was making its activities more climate-friendly, including by expanding into renewable energy.”

More than a hundred countries have committed to triple renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030 and double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements, reports France 24. It adds: “G20 nations, which account for nearly 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, paved the way for a deal when they endorsed the renewable energy goal in September. While supporters are expected to push for the pledge to be included in the final outcome of the talks, there are fears that the COP28 hosts were willing to shunt the more ambitious targets into voluntary deals.” The Guardian says the signatories include the US, Australia, Canada and Norway, but “not China and India”. Sky News quotes Francesco La Camera, director general of international renewables body IRENA, saying it will take a “cyclopedic effort” to achieve the renewables pledge. Bloomberg says: “Currently, the world has about 3.6 terawatts of renewables installed, built over decades. To triple that, another 7 terawatts will need to be added in the next seven years. That’s a lot of solar and wind – but if achieved it would cut emissions by more than 9bn tons in 2030, says BloombergNEF solar analyst Jenny Chase, equivalent to a quarter of global CO2 emissions last year.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times carries an interview with Darren Woods, chief executive of ExxonMobil, the “biggest western oil supermajor”. He tells the newspaper that the UN  climate talks have focused on renewable energy for too long, adding: “The transition is not limited to just wind, solar and EVs. Carbon capture is going to play a role. We’re good at that. We know how to do it, we can contribute. Hydrogen will play a role. Biofuels will play a role.” The FT explains: “It is the first time an Exxon chief executive has attended the event, and his presence has prompted climate experts to criticise the industry’s continued efforts to delay action and its oversized influence at the UN summit.”

Relatedly, the New York Times reports that the “US and 21 other countries pledged on Saturday at [COP28] to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying the revival of nuclear power was critical for cutting carbon emissions to near zero in the coming decades”. It adds: “Britain, Canada, France, Ghana, South Korea, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates were among the 22 countries that signed the declaration to triple capacity from 2020 levels.”

Separately, Reuters reports that Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has clarified earlier remarks by stressing that Brazil will never join the OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations as a full member and instead only seeks to participate as an observer. The newswire adds: “Lula said that it is important for Brazil to participate in OPEC+ in order to advocate that countries rich from oil proceeds invest some of that money in helping poor developing countries in Africa and Latin America to invest in renewable energy such as solar and wind.”

Fifty oil companies representing nearly half of global production have pledged at COP28 to reach “near-zero methane emissions” and end routine flaring in their operations by 2030, reports the Associated Press (AP), in a move that environmental groups have called a “smokescreen”. The newswire adds: “Methane emissions are a significant contributor to global warming, so sharply reducing them could help slow temperature rise. If the companies carry out their pledges, it could trim 0.1C from future warming, a prominent climate scientist calculated and told AP. That is about how much the Earth is currently warming every five years…Signing on to the pledge were major national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco, Brazil’s Petrobras and Sonangol, from Angola, and multi-nationals like Shell, TotalEnergies and BP.” The Guardian reports: “The US has used [COP28] to unveil new regulations it estimates will cut methane emissions from its vast oil and gas industry by 80% from levels that would be expected without the rule, a total of 58m tonnes by 2038.”

The Financial Times says: “ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, BP and Shell were among the companies that agreed to set or tighten voluntary deadlines for emissions reductions, along with state energy companies Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. None agreed to reduce hydrocarbon production…The main state energy companies of Iran, China, Mexico, Kuwait, Venezuela and Russia did not participate. Chevron, which did not sign the pledge, said it welcomed the effort but required ‘more clarity on the framework’. It would focus on delivering its own lower carbon targets, it said.” Another FT article quotes UN secretary-general António Guterres criticising the emissions reduction plans launched by COP28 climate summit president Sultan Al Jaber, saying they “clearly fall short of what is required”. Guterres adds that the agreement “says nothing about eliminating emissions from fossil fuel consumption”.

Many outlets cover the comments and announcements made by the dozens of world leaders speaking on the opening days of COP28. Reuters reports that US vice president Kamala Harris announced on Saturday that the US has pledged $3bn to the Green Climate Fund. The newswire adds: “The fund, with more than $20bn in pledges, is the largest international fund dedicated to supporting climate action in developing countries. The latest pledge, which Reuters was first to report, would be additional to another $2bn previously delivered by the US. Sources said the pledge was subject to the availability of funds. The politically divided US Congress needs to authorise the funding.” The Guardian says there was a “mixed reaction” to the US’s announcements, which “came under attack for meagre assistance to developing countries and for its own booming oil and gas extraction industry”.

Additionally, Reuters reports that the Pope’s remarks were read out at COP28 in person by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, adding: “Pope Francis said on Sunday that it was essential for all world religions to unite in opposing the ‘rapacious’ devastation of the environment. The 86-year-old pope had planned to preside at the opening of the Faith Pavilion at [COP28], but a lung inflammation forced him to remain in the Vatican. Religions, said the Pope, ‘need, urgently, to act for the sake of the environment’, educate their members to ‘sober and fraternal lifestyles’ instead of wasteful ones and work for a return to the individual contemplation of nature’s grandeur.”

The Guardian covers the opening speech made by King Charles who said on Friday that the world has embarked on a “vast, frightening experiment” on the natural world. The king added: “Our choice is now a starker, and darker, one: how dangerous are we actually prepared to make our world?” The New York Times says: “For Charles, who was asked by the British government not to attend the 2022 COP meeting in Egypt, this was a high-profile return to the stage on an issue he has championed since before climate change was part of everyday vocabulary.” Most outlets note that more than 130 heads of state and government gathered in Dubai for the opening days of a two-week summit. Reuters has captured some of the other leaders’ speeches, including Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley who said: “The truth is that we are in danger of being sucked into an international media frenzy that allows us only to capture that which can be captured in a soundbite.”

The Hindu reports that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi offered that his nation host COP33 in 2028. It adds: “He said that developed countries ought to be ‘vacating the carbon space’ before 2050 and made a pitch for the world’s countries to join India on its ‘Green Credit initiative’ which was a ‘non-commercial’ effort to create a carbon sink.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times – as has Carbon Brief – examines the list of COP28 participants, stating: “The UAE host of COP28 has given access to hundreds of bankers, consultants and lobbyists – and 20 housekeepers – at the event where oil and gas executives such as ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods will rub up against almost 200 government delegations shaping global climate policy…The roster of chief executives on the UAE guest list included interim BP chief executive Murray Auchincloss, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, commodity trading group Trafigura’s Jeremy Weir and Brookfield Asset Management’s Connor Teskey. BlackRock and Brookfield were involved in the $30bn fund launched by the UAE on Friday to invest in climate-related projects. Bankers were one of the most represented professions among badge holders invited by the UAE, as climate finance moves to the forefront.”

Seven countries, including the US, Norway and the Czech Republic, have joined the “Powering Past Coal Alliance” calling for the phase-out of unabated coal-fired power generation by 2030, reports S&P Global. It continues: “The coalition does not include China or India, the world’s biggest consumers of coal. The US joining the alliance, as the world’s third largest consumer of coal, is a major win for the PPCA.” The Associated Press says that the US has joined “56 other nations in kicking the coal habit that’s a huge factor in global warming”. However, it quotes climate analyst Alden Meyer of the thinktank E3G who stresses that US coal power plants have already been shutting down across the nation due to economics, and no new coal facilities were in the works, so the US is “heading to retiring coal by the end of the decade anyway”. Axios quotes US climate envoy John Kerry saying that “there shouldn’t be any more coal-fired power plants permitted anywhere in the world.”

The FT says that World Bank president Ajay Banga has stressed that the “hundreds of millions of dollars committed to a fund to help poor countries with climate loss and damage would not be spent on any projects before a raft of technical analysis”. The newspaper adds: “Five countries plus the EU pledged the seed money to the historic new loss and damage fund on the first day of the UN climate summit [totalling $420m], marking an early success for negotiators. In addition, France and Italy each pledged €100m ($109m) on Friday, while Canada set aside $16m – taking the tally to about $655m by the weekend.” The FT says that the World Bank will be playing a trustee role rather than allocating the capital itself. The paper quotes Banga saying: “That’s going to be the beginning…Otherwise, $420m is not going to take us very far in a loss and damage situation. So it’s really about getting the numbers established.” It says Banga added that it could be “some time next year” before “you will start seeing money actually put out to help countries on the ground”.

Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy on climate change, has said in a speech at COP28 that the Chinese government is preparing to propose new targets and initiatives for China’s climate pledges (nationally determined contributions, NDCs) under the Paris Agreement for both 2030 and 2035, reports the state newswire China News Service. It says he added that existing technology is “insufficient” to achieve the Paris goals and that “technological innovation is necessary”.

Meanwhile, the state news agency Xinhua reports that Ding Xuexiang, Chinese president Xi Jinping’s special representative and one of seven members of China’s top political body, remarked in an address at the G77 and China leaders’ summit at COP28 that “China is ready to work closely with other developing countries to build a green and low-carbon future”. Politico reports that wealthy countries’ climate finance pledges at COP28 – including from hosts the UAE, which like China is officially a developing country – have “turn[ed] up the pressure on countries like China to open their cheque books”. Bloomberg quotes Xie as saying in a speech that “there should be a unified standard on what green, low-carbon products are to ease trade restrictions between countries” and that “opening up trade can help lower global emissions by increasing availability of cleaner energy supplies”. The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily carries a commentary under the nom de plume “Heyin”, which says that China will “work with all parties to take the opportunity of a global stocktake, focus on implementing actions…and promote the construction of a fair, reasonable and mutually beneficial global climate governance system”.

Separately, Xinhua reports that the second “Sino-British hydrogen energy cooperation forum” has been held in Manchester. Chinese ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang remarked at the forum that China and the UK each have their “strengths in hydrogen energy development, and their development goals align closely”. The energy outlet BJX News covers the same story, adding that Zheng said that both sides will use this year’s forum as an “opportunity to explore further the cooperation potential…[in] new energy, such as hydrogen”. Elsewhere, Arab News says that “whether the positive momentum brought about by the recent US-China climate agreement could generate a similar wave of cooperation and responsible practices in other industrialised economies remains to be seen”. 

In other China news, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post says that “replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources could prevent around 5m extra deaths per year from air pollution worldwide”, most of which are from China and India, according to a new study. China Daily reports that China Meteorological Administration data shows that “carbon dioxide concentrations in the air in China last year increased at a significantly lower rate than the average annual global increase between 2013 and 2022”. Finally, Xinhua reports that China has “implemented the monitoring and control of more than 30 types of greenhouse gases in seven major categories under the Kyoto Protocol”.

Politico reports that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has tried to defend his decision to only attend COP28 for half a day, saying it would be wrong to “measure our impact here by hours spent”. The outlet adds: “The UK prime minister left the Dubai summit for his return flight to the UK on Friday evening, having only arrived in the UAE 11 hours earlier. Other world leaders have devoted more time to the UN climate conference and the UK’s own head of state, King Charles III, attended for two full days. ‘It is hugely simplistic to measure the impact of our presence here by the hours we spend,’ Sunak said in response to a Politico question at a press conference Friday. He said: ‘You could be saying to me, ‘you should be here for three days.’ But that would mean nothing if I hadn’t come home with £10bn of investment in an offshore wind farm, creating jobs and providing clean energy, or I hadn’t been able to announce more money for climate finance.’” BBC News has a full video recording of Sunak’s press conference, which some UK climate journalists were excluded from attending. The Guardian’s Helena Horton has factchecked the various claims made by Sunak during his press conference.

The Observer says that “Rishi Sunak has been accused of hypocrisy on the international stage after pushing for a phase-out of fossil fuels at [COP28] – weeks after backing more oil and gas exploration in the North Sea”. It adds: “The prime minister’s lack of ‘consistency’ over climate policy was ridiculed by several senior Conservatives, as well as the former US vice president Al Gore, while members of other international delegations said the UK’s incoherent approach meant it was no longer a global leader on climate issues.”

The Press Association reports that UK energy security and net-zero secretary of state Claire Coutinho has used her own appearance at COP28 to make “green energy agreements with countries such as the US and Brazil, along with funding to prevent deforestation”. The newswire says: “Sunak announced £1.6bn for international climate finance, including to support projects to halt deforestation and accelerate the transition to renewable energy…Coutinho said, as part of that package, more than £85m will go towards initiatives to protect forests, including £35m alone for Brazil’s dedicated fund to prevent the Amazon rainforest from being culled further.” Speaking to the Daily Express, Coutinho pushed now-familiar UK government lines: “We are incredibly ambitious. We’re further ahead than almost all of our international peers with decarbonising. But it’s also really important that we’re hard-headed about protecting households, and making sure we are thinking about how we use this advantage to bring in investment and create jobs.”

Meanwhile, BBC News has interviewed Labour leader Kier Starmer, who visited COP28 over the weekend. He said it was in the “British national interest” for him to be there and a “statement of intent”, with a general election likely next year.

At the request of German chancellor Olaf Scholz, German economy and climate action minister Robert Habeck has postponed his trip to the COP28, reports Der Spiegel. The outlet explains that the ongoing coalition negotiations over the “budget crisis” mean that Habeck’s presence in Berlin “is necessary to advance the discussions”. Bloomberg explains that Germany has been “struggling with the budget dilemma” since mid-November when the country’s top court ruled that allocating €60bn in unused Covid-19 pandemic aid for climate protection was “unconstitutional.” Deutsche Welle (DW) notes that Habeck had been planning to move on to Oman, Israel and Saudi Arabia after attending COP28. 

Meanwhile, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that Scholz called for a global shift away from fossil fuels at COP28. The chancellor is quoted saying in his speech in Dubai on Saturday: “We must now all demonstrate the firm determination to phase out fossil fuels – first and foremost, coal.” However, Focus reports that Habeck has announced a potential delay in Germany’s coal phase-out targeted for 2030 due to “an uncertain supply situation”, according to German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. Finally, DW reports that “Germany welcomed initiatives [at COP28] to reduce methane emissions”, saying on Sunday that they could “quickly make an impact.”

An editorial in the Guardian argues that “humanity is at risk if there is no transition away from an extractive growth model to a greener one”. It continues: “What’s needed today is a “green Marshall plan”. But former colonial powers with historical climate responsibility won’t stump up the cash. The world’s poorest countries are paying more than 12 times as much to their creditors as they are spending on preventing environmental destruction. Some resource-rich poor nations are negotiating a place in green industrial supply chains by playing the US off against China. But the Kenya-based economist Fadhel Kaboub is right: the climate emergency needs not incremental but transformational change in the trade, investment and finance architecture. Fossil fuels are today’s weapons of mass destruction, representing an existential threat. There are parallels with 1968’s treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Part of the solution to the climate emergency is to increase the use of renewables. But equally important is to stop the expansion of fossil fuel production, and not just with a vague promise that emissions will be abated in the future. Richer nations that benefited the most from coal, oil and gas extraction should commit to ending, equitably, the era of fossil fuels. Anything else, as the president of Timor-Leste, José Ramos-Horta, says, would be ‘crocodile tears’.” A separate Guardian editorial responding to the start of COP28 says, “just like oil and gas businesses, and petro-states, carbon-intensive industries including meat will fight to keep on polluting”. In contrast, an editorial in the Daily Mail applauds Rishi Sunak’s “pragmatic” approach to climate change: “As renewables are intermittent, it is sensible for Sunak to exploit our North Sea oil and gas reserves to keep the country going. The innovative spirit of the private sector is the key to bridging the power gap – and bequeathing our children a cleaner planet.”

In the Independent, Ndileka Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter, uses the 10th anniversary of his death to express her “deep concerns about the ongoing crisis of ‘climate apartheid’”. The New York Times gives space to Bill Gates to explain “how I invest my money in a warming world”. Economics editor Larry Elliot in the Guardian writes: “Capitalism is a highly malleable system, and it has responded to pressure from environmentalists. Whether it has changed deeply or quickly enough is moot, but the fact that there is an annual UN conference to monitor progress on meeting agreed decarbonisation matters. Countries have to account for their actions. Free-market liberals argue that, left to its own devices, the profit motive would eventually find a way to cut greenhouse gases and save the planet. This seems improbable. Without political pressure, it would be business as usual.”

Also writing in the Guardian, former David Cameron adviser turned PR Tara Singh says that “Sunak may have the answer” to climate action in the UK: “In his speech he suggested that MPs should vote not only on carbon budgets, but the specific strategies required to meet them. In my view, this could be the gamechanger we need. The approach binds politicians to long-term solutions rather than short-term political gain, and is already common in consensus-driven countries such as Denmark. When an MP gets a say on policy, and votes to confirm it, it becomes more substantial than simply saying yea or nay to targets, and harder to evaluate or row back on later. Embracing such a strategy could transform Britain’s energy policy from a political football into a shared national mission. That is the approach net-zero requires, and the approach that we, the public, deserve.” The i newspaper sees Anne McElvoy arguing that, “however imaginative the fudges and partial fixes, the transition to net-zero needs to happen faster”. The Sunday Times’s Ben Spencer has a feature on “how the COP28 climate conference became the new Davos”. Finally, the Daily Telegraph gives space to two climate sceptics, Peter Lilley and Bjorn Lomborg.

In a commentary for Nature, a range of UK Met Office climate scientists including Richard Betts, Stephen Belcher and Peter Stott write: “It might come as a surprise, then, to hear that the Paris statement contains no formally agreed way of defining the present level of global warming. The pact does not even define ‘temperature increase’ explicitly and unambiguously. Without an agreed metric, there can be no consensus on when the 1.5C level has been reached. This is likely to result in distraction and delay just at the point when climate action is most urgent…What would count as passing 1.5C? A method is needed for filtering out such natural climate cycles.” They then explain how “our metric is more future-proof and consistent with the approaches that are already used to support the Paris agreement”.

Ocean cooling in response to aerosol emissions has “decelerated substantially” since 1980, according to a new study. The change is largely driven by the tropics and sub-tropics, where the ocean has stopped cooling in response to aerosols, the paper finds. The authors suggest that these regions “may have equilibrated to ongoing aerosol-driven radiative forcing”. They add that “these changes are occurring alongside accelerating greenhouse gas-driven warming, suggesting that the relative role of aerosols in cooling our climate is weakening”.