COP 28, What Was The Result?

Today, Wednesday, December 13, 2023, is the last scheduled day of the COP 28 convention of climate Cassandras in Dubai. There is some dissatisfaction among the attendees that an immediate end to the use of fossil fuels and a transfer of wealth to the developing global south didn't take place.

UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres said: "Many vulnerable countries are drowning in debt and at risk of drowning in rising seas. It is time for a surge in finance, including for adaptation, loss and damage and reform of the international financial architecture.”

 

 

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While many financial numbers related to contributions were enumerated in the talks, there didn't seem to be any details on how these funds would be applied to the problem of climate change or how whatever success in preventing floods, droughts and wild fires was to be measured.

US government figures at the COP 28 included special climate guy John Kerry and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as:

Alice Albright, CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)

Rostin Behnam, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, Department of State (DoS)

Deanne Criswell, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Enoh Ebong, Director, United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA)

Amos Hochstein, Senior Advisor for Energy and Investment, White House

Jennifer Klein, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Gender Policy Council (GPC)

Reta Jo Lewis, Chair, Export-Import Bank (EXIM)

Brenda Mallory, Chair, White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)

Scott Nathan, CEO, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)

C. William Nelson, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, White House

Samantha Power, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Michael Regan, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Richard Spinrad, Administrator, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Thomas James Vilsack, Secretary, Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Shalanda Young, Director, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Ali Zaidi, National Climate Advisor, White House

 

Many US universities sent delegations to the COP 28 meetings. The University of Minnesota was represented by 14 delegates. The University of Pennsylvania sent 24 delegates. Sixteen students and a faculty adviser from the University of Michigan attended the affair. Over a dozen Harvard faculty members made the trip to Dubai.

They, and many others, are committed to the abandonment of fossil fuels before the earth becomes uninhabitable.

The disappointment of the COP 28 representatives was probably inevitable in that it isn't possible for the confab to force the biggest users of fossil fuels to destroy their own economies on the basis of dubious science. 

Overlapping the COP 28 was the Egyptian Defense Expo outside of Cairo. It had roughly half the attendance of the Dubai celebration and the products exhibited were based on scientifically proven principles.