Taking stock of COP28

It has been less than a week since COP28 came to a conclusion. The final frantic press releases are out, and attendees have travelled home. Negotiators and observers alike are readjusting to the world outside of the negotiation halls, to a diet that includes significantly more vegetables, and to a break from the constant refreshing of the website hosting draft negotiation texts.

It is also a time for many to reflect on both their personal goals for the COP and the outcomes of the negotiations. Were these a success or a failure or, more likely, somewhere in between? A common comparison among participants weary of the huge event compound was the number of steps walked. Or is a better measurement the number of new contacts made, and business cards exchanged? The number of pdfs of negotiating texts still open on your computer? The number of words of negotiating texts read and analysed?

In 5 days on the ground at COP28 I walked over 85.000 steps, collected 9 business cards from new contacts, had 14 pdfs of negotiating texts and statements open on my computer, and analysed 67.988 words of negotiating text. On all of these metrics, I had a good COP.

The success or failure of the negotiations is harder to judge. Can only a decision that completely aligns with the best available climate science and maximises emissions reductions be considered a success? Or have we succeeded just by achieving consensus between the 198 Parties, even if the content of the decision is around the lowest common denominator?

As with most years, the outcomes of the COP28 were somewhere in between these two poles. Fossil fuels were contained in a decision text of the climate negotiations for the first time ever, although enthusiasm was dampened by the weak language that surrounded them, with a suggested “transitioning away” from fossil fuels replacing a proposed mandatory “phase out”. A Global Goal on Adaptation was agreed, but the obligations of historic high emitters were not as clear as developing countries demanded. A fund on loss and damage was operationalised and first funds committed, although predictability of future funding is not guaranteed.

Since the negotiations ended, they have been described by pundits as both a historic success and a historic failure. They have been lauded as bringing us a step forward and also criticised for not providing the deep social-ecological transformation of societies that is required to counter the climate crisis. Both of these assessments are built upon expectations of the international climate negotiations that do not always tally with reality.

Diplomacy is messy and the process of achieving consensus between nearly 200 Parties involves compromise. What the decision text has achieved is new hooks that can help increase ambition at the national level and pressure points that civil society can use to support their demands. The true test of whether the COP28 was a success or a failure therefore won’t be in the documents that have been produced as outputs, but what outcomes can be generated by their implementation.