A new study may have strengthened the COP28 text

January 12, 2024

David Spratt and Ian Dunlop provide a telling review of COP28, the most recent UN climate conference.

While it is true that the heavily modified text assumes it is possible to negotiate with the laws of nature and that physics doesnt care, it is also true that there is no better process. At least Spratt and Dunlop havent suggested one.

But they are right to be angry and alarmed like the scientists they quote.

It is infuriating, particularly for Pacific Island nations, that in the hottest year on record, as we nudge the feared 1.5-degree anomaly, that the final text at COP28 should not contain the key words phase-out of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contribute over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Perhaps if the findings of a recent Australian study had been read to the COP delegates, the final wording might have been stronger. About 125,000 years ago, when the Earth was in its last warm period between ice ages and global temperatures were similar to now, the West Antarctic ice sheet had most likely collapsed. Should this happen again sea levels will rise by three to five metres.

FF 75%: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/causes-effects-climate-change

Study: https://theconversation.com/what-octopus-dna-tells-us-about-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-218810