Cop28 hosted by a petrostate? Ridiculous, says Greta Thunberg. But it also offers a glimmer of hope

Editorial: Holding the climate change summit in the United Arab Emirates should be seen as a positive, a reminder that net zero is no longer the sole concern of the West – and that catastrophe can still be averted in the age of ‘global boiling'

World on fire: July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded (AP)

No one pretends that the oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the most obvious choice for a global summit on climate change. Nor, at least at first glance, is Sultan al-Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the first name that springs to mind when contemplating the leadership the world needs to make Cop28 a success.

Greta Thunberg, who needs no encouragement to highlight hypocrisy, calls it “completely ridiculous”. As if to prove her point, there have, in recent days, been some disturbing reports about the host country’s fossil fuel interests taking advantage of the event to make side deals on oil sales with African nations.

Then there is the news that the King, Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary David Cameron are taking separate private jets to the conference.

Again, that is discouraging. But, as they say in football, we are where we are, and the UAE is indeed taking its turn as the location for the summit, with Dubai as the base, and Jaber its chair. At least it shows that the Gulf states formally acknowledge the challenges.

To his credit, the summit’s chair has expressed his confidence that hope remains alive that the rise in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels can be limited to 1.5C – but it requires commitment and action.

The frightening fact is that our precious Earth is not presently on track to limit global warming to 1.5C. The window for meaningful change is closing, and the time to act is now. As the King, who is travelling to Dubai to bolster the British delegation, has stressed, climate change is the most existential of threats; it is an issue The Independent has proudly campaigned on for more than two decades, and it transcends wars and business-as-usual politics.

Unless the rise in world temperatures is slowed, much of the world will become uninhabitable within decades; and long before that, the Earth’s ability to feed, provide water and sustainable energy for its human population will start to collapse. So we need to get to net zero emissions of greenhouse gases – the primary cause of climate change – by the middle of the century. That moment is nearer than many like to suppose. Every official target pushed back from the 2020s to the 2030s will become that much harder to achieve in the 2040s.

Crucial to achieving these goals will be the efforts of every nation in the world to make its own contribution – and having the United Nations offer the UAE the opportunity to press on with this effort is thus entirely appropriate. Alienating and boycotting nations that currently rely on their livelihood on oil exports and others who need fossil fuels to lift their people out of poverty is not going to win the argument and accomplish change. At this summit, the UAE will have an enhanced incentive to secure success, and to set an example; recent embarrassments about double-dealing will have served an inadvertent purpose.

A strong initiative at Cop28 is urgently required. Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine – and before that, the Covid pandemic – inevitably pushed climate change down the global political agenda, and off the front pages. In much of east-central Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, disruption to gas supplies have forced governments and energy companies back to burning coal, a far dirtier fuel.

The slowdown in economic growth everywhere has made it harder for consumers to adopt some of the green technologies such as electric cars; and tougher for governments to borrow to invest in green energy, despite the transition yielding cheaper energy bills in decades to come.

Regrettably, this backsliding has been evident in the UK. Mr Sunak’s relaxation of targets for electric vehicles and home heat pumps was the illogical and counterproductive price of (perverse) political virtue signalling – and has had net zero impact on his woeful poll ratings. (Mr Sunak should understand that the public is fully aware of the financial and environmental benefits of clean energy and breathable air.)

Despite the efforts of some to ignore the realities, the baleful effects of the failure to act sooner to save the planet have, nonetheless, made themselves more than apparent – and intruded on our consciences and consciousness. Freak weather events and climate disasters across the world in recent years have been periodic reminders of the urgency of climate change.

Many thousands have died in floods and fires across the world this year, from the unnatural flash floods in Libya to record-breaking monsoons and cyclones across Asia, to wildfires in Canada and poor harvests in Europe, the unpredictable but often grievous consequences of global warming make the case for action far more eloquently than any speech. In July, the hottest month ever recorded on the planet, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the UN, declared that the era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”.

Though mocked as hyperbole by people who spurn science – very often the self-same conspiracy theorists who campaign against vaccines – Mr Guterres is demonstrably right. The pre-conference “stock-take” on progress towards the (legally binding) goals of the Paris Agreement of 2015 shows that, while that accord has spurred action on climate change, current policies and promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not sufficient.

That much we know, and the dangers are well publicised. But no Cop summit can be successful without hope and some sense of optimism about the ability of mankind and its science to save itself from destruction. It is late – but not too late.

Events such as the Dubai summit serve to highlight the challenges and to regain momentum lost in recent worldwide emergencies. The US, the EU, even China, are making historic investments in green energy technologies, and the days when the climate-change deniers were given equal status in the media are now behind us – relegated to the status of Flat Earthers, UFO spotters, and the folk who think the moon landings were staged in Hollywood. (Indeed, such eccentric groups tend to overlap.)

Climate change is no longer a matter of debate. We at least know what needs to be done.