To understand how the Just Transition topic was discussed during the COP28 dialogues and speeches, the following paper begins with the emergence of the “Just Transition '' concept in the international community. The ‘Just transition’ concept was born in the 1980s when US workers and environmental groups started to advocate for environmental protection. In the last few years, Just Transition has evolved into a notion emphasising fair and inclusive process towards a net-zero society and was included in the Copenhagen Summit (2009) as well as in the preamble to the Paris Agreement (2015). Then, the key debated points will be examined.
Introduction: What does “Just Transition” mean?
A ‘Just Transition’ should include people as principal actors in the process, showing the socio-economic benefits of encouraging the creation of green jobs and improving the research of local climate solutions to tackle climate change. Key actors in this process include governments, local administrations, businesses and workers’ organisations, all collaborating to ensure a proper comprehension of people’s needs. To leave an effective footprint, governments should perfectly understand what exactly ‘just transition’ means. (UNEP, 2022) However, the concept appears to be misunderstood by many political parties around the world, especially populist parties which leverage people’s worries about their short-term future and divert their attention to the long-term consequences of global climate warming.
An equal approach should identify fragile groups that should be able to influence decision makers such as national governments and international organisations; then, the latter should fairly distribute resources to avoid environmental injustice. As highlighted by the Just Transition Initiative, depending on the level of social inclusion and distribution impacts we want to implement, the results may be four. Considering a selected group of stakeholders and focusing on particular sectors, the approach may result in social and economic changes for a selected group of participants. If the distribution is enlarged and just a few actors are included, we will have a Top-Down Transition. Considering more decisional groups, specific transition processes could produce a narrow transition. When an inclusive is directed towards a wider range of sectors, the system undergoes a concrete transformation. (Just Transition Initiative)
There are a few fundamental principles for a fair transition. One of them is Buen Vivir, which comes from the Latin American countries' cultures and traditions and means that we are part of a community that lives in a natural world where we should all have access to clean air, water, soil and food. Focusing the national economy on the coal fossil fuel production, delocalized primary production, pushing countries and communities to rely on globalisation is increasing global warming. The Buen Vivir modus operandi implies the reduction of resource consumption, restoration of traditional ways of life, weakening of extractive economies where coal and oil are the main source of wealth. (Climate Justice Alliance)
What has been highlighted during the 6th day of COP 28?
As the Just Transition Thematic Day began, the speakers reiterated the importance of engaging as many countries and companies as possible. The largest number of fossil fuel representatives participating in a COP was registered this year in Dubai, consequently involving a larger number of players in the conference. One of the major goals for a just transition is considered to be the decarbonization of the Oil & Gas sector and the related removal of methane emissions. The Oil & Gas sector is responsible for 10% of the global GHG emissions and is considered to be 80 times more potent than CO2 emissions, 35% of the Oil & Gas emissions are correlated to methane use and many companies are not transparent on their GHG emissions yet.
The first topic was the reduction of methane emissions. Although an increasing number of enterprises are actively participating in the reduction of emissions processes, during the 6th day of COP28 the necessity of promoting a cross-industry collaboration has been evoked. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), to pursue the limit of warming to 1,5 °C, methane emissions should decrease by 60% in just a few years. Around $75 billion, which is the amount that corresponds to less than 2% of Oil & Gas industry income, should be spent by 2030. Decreasing methane emissions could avoid 1 million premature deaths due to ozone exposure, 90 million tonnes of crop losses, 85 billion hours of lost labour by 2050. (UNEP, 2023) In the last few years, the methane emission monitoring has improved thanks to the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) action. IMEO's purpose is to provide data on methane emissions by collecting them from satellites, national databases and other collecting data technologies. Some major companies started to introduce innovative technologies such as using a closed-loop system where gases are contained in a storage and not spreaded in the environment.
The second topic was the following: a just transition is unattainable unless everyone has access to sustainable energy. The stress was posed on electrifying cooking as a practice to reach a net-zero environment as well. According to the former IRENA director Adnan Amin, 2.3 million of people in Africa and Asia are still using biomass for cooking causing health, gender and climate concerns. According to the World Bank, the lack of clean cooking is estimated to cost more than $2.4 trillion/year. For this reason, the Global Electric Cooking Coalition was launched to spread access to electric cooking. The aim of the Coalition is to “present action plans and mobilise finance with government pledging to increase the energy access in developing countries, such as the UAE’s $4.5 billion finance initiative for Africa’s clean energy potential.” The Coalition includes development partners, philanthropies and international organisations.
Another key point highlighted that small island governments should not be alone in this journey towards a clean transition. “Civil society, the private sector and Academia should be aligned in supporting one another” as Island Innovation founder James Ellsmoor stated. During small island states’ representatives' dialogues and speeches, climate justice has been partially highlighted, even if it is at the core of the identification of a Just transition. The focus was especially on the necessity of small island states to increase their capacity of renewable energy production and the opportunity to exploit their proximity with oceans for implementing ocean energy technologies.
Another concept at the core of this year's COP was the phase-down of fossil fuels, especially coal. During his speech on the “Enabling a just and managed transition for coal” session, Adnan Amin announced that, as other countries, UAE joined the Powering Pass Coal Alliance (PPCA). The Coalition was created to promote the cooperation between national and subnational governments, businesses and organisations to pursue the transition from coal power to clean energy. The PPCA includes 60 national governments, 51 subnational governments, 71 global organisations. The project was born in 2017 during COP23. Amin reminded that the phase-down is a core part of the transition the world must chase. Coal based power represents 27% of global energy and industry related emissions. According to what Amin declared, “if we retire 1GW of coal powered electricity early, we could reduce emissions by 2 to 4 metric tons of CO2 equivalent every year. This is equivalent to removing almost 1 million internal combustion engine vehicles from the roads”.
The coal transition’s path is still hindered by many obstacles, especially in Asia and Africa where the coal industry is younger than in the so-called developed countries. Amin proposed to adopt climate finance mechanisms, such as high integrity transition credits for governments and corporations that want to phase down coal power. Andrew Steer (Bezos Earth Fund CEO) stated that emerging world’s countries will need to increase their investments in clean energy to $1.9 trillion a year by 2030. As developing economies are not able to invest such a huge amount of money, Steer commented how we should push the growth of the carbon markets to help countries to, at least, pay for almost all non-commercial viable parts of coal decommissioning. Indeed, philanthropy, development banks, funds and carbon markets can play a huge role to help the coal transition for developing countries.
The last session was dedicated to the Global Cooling Pledge, which is one of the 9 declarations, commitments and non-negotiable papers closed during COP28. Its core commitment is to reduce 68% emissions generated by cooling by 2050, to increase sustainable cooling access by 2030 and global efficiency of air conditioners by 50%. The Global Cooling Pledge was signed by 63 countries. According to the Global Cooling Watch report published by the UN Environment Programme-led Cool Coalition, there are three areas where we must act: passive cooling, higher-energy efficiency standards and faster phase-down of climate-warming refrigerants. (UNEP, 2023)
On the 5th Thematic Day, “Gender-responsive just transition and climate action Partnership” was launched. The partnership will implement the Paris Agreement in three ways: advancing gender equality through equal opportunities to decent work in emerging job markets, enabling finance flows to women and girls in the regions most impacted by climate change and supporting the call for gender disaggregated data collection. In the Declaration the Parties stated that the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women and girls is recognised and that climate change is worsening inequalities. Few of the declared commitments are to encourage strategies to promote sustainable livelihoods, gender-responsive and disability-inclusive social protection systems, share experiences on gender-responsive planning and budgeting, supporting data collection, cooperation across sectors, promote measures to reduce, redistribute and value unpaid care and domestic work. The Declaration was only signed by 18 countries, including China, and Belgium and Austria as the only EU countries. (COP28 UAE).
Conclusion
Regarding the Just Transition topic, many proposals presented this year had already been made in the past. For instance, there was a commitment to expand the carbon markets and apply more carbon credits mechanisms. Furthermore, the adopted approach in the final COP28 draft was to softly call on (verb used in the official final document) Parties “to accelerate” processes which should have been started years ago.
Indeed, data and short periods of time are two obstacles to the ambitious process of drastically reducing emissions in just 6 years. Scientific data show that we are going in the opposite direction compared to the COP28 final goals. While scientists recommend to reduce 43% of emissions by 2030, data shows that CO2 emissions will increase by 14%. We still have just a few years ahead and we have not reached the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goals yet. It is difficult to be optimistic about a surprising upswing with such a short available period of time. Moreover, we must not forget that the choice of words used in the final draft is fundamental.
Once again, by changing the core term from “phase-out” to “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, the international community showed to not be ready for concrete actions. While during the Just Transition day, spotlights were partially on social and economic players most affected by climate change (i.e. small island states, indigenous peoples, developing countries still dependent on coal),the room they gained does not directly mean that their situation will significantly improve in a few years. The 6th day Just Transition goals reminded us that we still have a long road ahead of us.
Matilde Pierattini (Senior Researcher - G.E.O. Environment)
Bibliography
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UNEP. (2023, 10 11). Urgent action to cut methane emissions from fossil fuel operations essential to achieve global climate targets. Tratto da https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/urgent-action-cut-methane-emissions-fossil-fuel-operations-essential#:~:text=Additional%20targeted%20actions%20to%20tackle,crossing%20irreversible%20climate%20tipping%20points. A-1
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