Greens call for more action after COP28 deal fails to deliver change needed
13 December 2023
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer called for urgent action from the UK government to go beyond the compromise deal agreed at this year’s COP climate summit in Dubai.
Denyer said:
“Without sustained government action following this disappointing COP28, the world is heading for a hellish future. We need to press our ambitions with a renewed vigour.
“The fact that UK climate change minister, Graham Stuart, returned to London to vote on the Rwanda Bill just as the hardest part of the negotiations got underway tells the world this Conservative government just doesn’t care.
“This is the price we pay for government chaos at home – being sidelined at the most crucial moment in the COP28 negotiations.
“COP agreed a ‘transition’ away from fossil fuels that falls far short of the fair phase out that is needed. It offers market solutions that will leave behind the poorest countries and bolster the Petro-states.
“Despite this disappointing result, we can still achieve an outcome that avoids the worst of the climate emergency while also creating safer streets, cleaner air, warmer homes, more jobs in renewable energy and support for our farmers to produce more food locally.
“There is a groundswell of calls for action from around the world – at least 127 countries called for or endorsed a decision to phase out fossil fuels at COP28. Now is the time for action.
“We got some limited cash pledges to kick-start the loss and damage fund, more warm words about the 1.5°C target and a desperate compromise on fossil-fuels that protects the interests of oil producers rather than the planet.
“We urged COP28 to achieve three vital things – the changes needed now to keep to the 1.5°C target set eight years ago in Paris; the phasing out of fossil fuels, and generous contributions to the loss and damage fund to support poorer countries through the climate crisis.
“The UK’s £60 million contribution to the loss and damage fund is not new money, and the totals pledged from the richest countries amount to less than 0.2% of the irreversible damage poorer countries are facing from global heating each year.
“Taken together, COP28 has not delivered nearly enough to tackle the climate crisis. That means it is all the more important to make our demand for action now clearer and louder.
“For instance, we must make the UK government face up to the science and cancel new oil and gas licences for the North Sea.
“It must now increase investment in onshore and offshore wind, and other forms of renewable energy, to deliver on pledges made.
“And the government must fund local councils to deliver a nationwide programme of home and business insulation to cut energy use and lower people’s bills.
“If the government here, and other world leaders, would engage seriously, we could be creating a much better and fairer future for people throughout the UK and around the world.
“We can still achieve that future. The best time to act was decades ago. The next best time is right now.”
ENDS
NOTES
The Green Party called for:
- Commitment from the UK government to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement and the massive scaling up of climate action that is now necessary to achieve it
COP28 delivered:
- 134 countries pledged to integrate food and agriculture in their climate plans in the first COP declaration to draw a connection between climate change and the food we eat.
The Green Party called for:
- The fair and managed phase-out of all fossil fuels, with the UK government leading by example by ending all new oil and gas licences and a rapid acceleration towards renewable energy.
COP28 delivered:
- Petro-states and oil companies successfully lobbied to keep the phase out of fossil fuels off the table.
- The final text puts a heavy reliance on technologies to “abate” carbon emissions rather than deal with their source
- UK government spokesperson – “The UK position is clear – there must be a phase-out of unabated fossil fuels to meet our climate goals.”
The Green Party called for:
- Recognition that it is a super-rich elite who are super-heating the planet, including a generous new Loss and Damage Fund to finance climate action in the poorest countries
COP28 delivered:
- Countries pledged £556 million to kick-start the loss and damage fund. The UK pledged £60 million.
- Save the Children said while the UK money “is an important contribution to a vital fund, it is not new or additional finance, but a repackaging of existing commitments.”
- The Loss and Damage Collaboration NGO said the total pledge was the equivalent of less than 0.2% of the irreversible economic and non-economic losses developing countries are facing from global heating every year.