COP28 and the snowball effect
The warming up
Prior to any outstanding event, press releases are carefully curated and and big announcements are made to warm up the count down for the event. And in the lead up to the 2023 United Nations Climate Conference no other than the independent Global Impact Coalition just officially launched. The CEO-led chemical industry initiative, incubated by the World Economic Forum for more than three years and previously known as Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies (LCET) initiative has emerged as an independent legal entity. And on another note, in the light of COP28, the SBTi shared how they are witnessing a snowball effect of climate action through the entire private sector.
And some takeaways
In a COP28 dominated by oil and natural gas producers signing agreements to reduce their carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and curb methane emissions to near-zero by 2030, was there a tangible snowball effect?
Any review I read about COP28 “X amount” of takeaways, follow up a similar structure where the global stocktake, energy transition, emission reduction pledges, business engagement and financial gaps are described.
The energy transition, in particular, continued to dominate headlines. As you can practically read anywhere, pledges tripling installed renewable-energy capacity and doubling the annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency both by 2030.
On the decarbonization path, these are the pathways to follow:
Speeding development of transition technologies, including renewables
Nuclear energy, tripling capacity by 2050
Technologies for reducing and removing carbon including carbon capture and storage, as expected
Low-carbon hydrogen
Yet chemicals are often overlooked in climate discussions. For industry representatives, COP28 provided an opportunity to see the latest developments in global climate action and explore how synergies can be formed to achieve a net-zero future economy.
