The inclusion of the phrase “fossil fuels” in the final agreement from COP28 marks a potentially trajectory-altering moment in the fight against climate change. The global pact calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”
For almost 30 years, negotiators representing nations from around the world had struggled and failed to reach an obvious consensus: that the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas should be wound down to avoid further catastrophic global warming.
However, some good news too: While the global climate summit’s declaration on fossil fuels got all the headlines, nature scored quite a win of its own.
In the final agreement, attendees of COP28 recognized that climate change threatens ecosystems and the billions of people who depend on them. They also committed to halting all deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, as well as the destruction of other land and marine ecosystems.
In a first, negotiators also aligned the climate declaration with a separate agreement to protect biodiversity that includes goals such as safeguarding 30 percent of the world’s land and seas.
“The ministers chose today to break from traditional silos and to pursue strategies that put nature at the heart of climate change responses,” Joe Walston, the executive vice president of Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a statement.
Nature can be harnessed in the struggle to curb global warming and its most tragic effects in myriad ways: Forests store carbon and reduce temperatures, coral reefs help shield coasts from extreme weather, and grasslands safeguard water sources from droughts.
Two thousand twenty-three is likely the hottest year on record. Global temperatures have not been this high in 125,000 years, and they are poised to blow past the 2 degree Celsius limit enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The result has been extreme weather events around the globe