Failure not an option

The 13-day United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai ends today with hopes high from observers round the world the thorniest issue on the use of oil and gas had been addressed.

The participation of more than 160 countries represented in the summit shows how important the conference has been, with strong suggestion no country is immune and that everyone in fact is now on the frontlines.

Like some observers, we feel most governments are still taking small steps, described by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiel as “baby steps, when bold strides are urgently needed.”

Billions of people have been harmed and the climate crisis has cost trillions in dollars.

In Dubai, we hope the governments have come to an agreement on what bolder actions need to be taken and how to deliver them, and the Summit was not just a photo-op.

We will see in the next few months if the heads of state and of government were able to deliver in Dubai.

There is hope that as the leaders leave Dubai after the opening Summit, their message to their negotiators had been equally clear, to use the words of Stiel, “don’t come home without a deal that will make a real difference.”

We are persuaded that as the COP28 geared up, that as the climate crisis entered a new phase and demonstrated its full force on humanity and the environment, the problem was clear on the radar screens of leaders and negotiators.

The Global Stocktake completed by UN Climate Change this year showed every nation where progress has stalled and highlighted the tools to get climate action moving much faster.

Experts and climatologists have chorused governments must pick up these tools and put them to work.

At COP28, we hope the governments delivered on two time frames: a surge in climate action now, and a springboard for next two crucial years, and beyond.

We raise our hope too the governments have agreed to triple renewable energy this decade, and double energy efficiency.

Developing nations – who did least to cause the crisis — have been starved of climate justice and resilience for too long.

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