Environmental campaigners ‘losing trust in COP’

Environmental campaigners are losing faith in the UN-led COP climate process after signs that a phase-out of fossil fuels may not be agreed in Dubai, a leading activist said yesterday.

Uganda’s Vanessa Nakate, a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador, said activists were tired of being disappointed at the annual United Nations conferences to battle climate change.

She was speaking after the latest COP28 draft agreement dropped any mention of winding down fossil fuels, speaking only of a potential reduction in consumption and production.

“It can be tiring to keep coming to these places and to be constantly disappointed by the decisions that are made,” the 27-year-old told a press conference.

“For this COP to be truly a success, it has to address fossil fuels.

“If leaders fail to address the root cause of the climate crisis after 28 years of climate conferences, then they aren’t only failing us, but they’re making us lose trust in the entire COP process.”

Nakate’s comments are reminiscent of 20-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who famously dismissed world leaders’ promises on climate change as just “blah, blah, blah”.

Thunberg, who in January said it was “ridiculous” that the United Arab Emirates’ state oil company chief was the COP28 president, last attended a COP summit in 2021.

Some activists were in tears over the latest text. Joseph Sikulu of Pacific Island Warriors took several seconds to compose himself before addressing the press conference with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Meanwhile, Arab officials yesterday hit out at attempts to secure the phase-out of fossil fuels at COP28. Kuwait’s oil minister dismissed the proposal as an “aggressive attack”, and accused Western nations of trying to dominate the global economy through alternative energy sources.

“I am amazed at this extraordinary insistence on depriving peoples and many countries, most of them in the developing world, of a basic source of energy,” Saad Hamad Nasser Al Barrak told the meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC).

Iraq’s oil minister, Hayyan Abdul Ghani Al Sawad, said “fossil fuels will remain the major source of energy in the whole world. We cannot phase out the use of that energy.”