Behind the scenes of COP 28
On 30 November, the opening day of COP 28, the Intellectual Forum hosted an informal conversation between IF Director Julian Huppert and Jesus College Postdoctoral Associate Dr Nina Seega on the expectations for and realities of the 28th international climate conference.
Dr Seega, Research Director for Sustainable Finance at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), is one of around 70,000 people attending COP 28, which will be taking place from 30 November until 12 December in Dubai. The conversation between Dr Seega and Dr Huppert gave Jesus College members the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of international climate negotiations and to ask their own pressing questions about what decisions might come out of this year’s summit.
Dr Seega began the conversation by explaining where international climate policy stands today. At COP 21 in 2015, 195 nations signed the Paris Agreement, which set a collective goal of keeping the planet well below 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. Scientists are currently predicting that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, measuring the planet’s temperature at 1.4° above the pre-industrial average.
Coming into COP 28, Dr Seega emphasised that there are feasible mitigation and adaptation options available now to slow further warming and respond to the environmental changes already taking place around the world. However, as she demonstrated, it is estimated that the amount of money flowing toward climate mitigation needs to go up between 3x – 6x; adaptation is even more complicated, as almost no private money is flowing towards these important efforts right now.
The first day of the conference did bring positive news: the operational structure of a “loss and damage” fund, which will support countries experiencing negative climate-related effects, was decided. With the framework for how the fund will be managed in place, countries including the UK have already made significant financial pledges towards it. Dr Seega hopes that this early agreement, which demonstrates support for emerging markets, will open up the possibility of productive negotiation going into the next two weeks.
During the Q&A portion of the talk, an audience member asked how the many international elections scheduled for this upcoming year, including a likely election in the UK, might affect these climate negotiations. Dr Seega admitted that she could see the impact of looming elections, although she made that point that even though Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his presidency, many US states and companies still adhered to commitments made in that agreement independently. However, she concluded that a more polarised world that is less concerned with what science has to say is dangerous when the need to adopt climate-conscious policies is so pressing.
Jesus College and the IF are both committed to encouraging adaptation and mitigation strategies, both in the College community and beyond. The College recently launched its first Sustainable Transport Strategy, which encourages all College members, staff, and visitors to employ low-carbon transport methods. Earlier this year, Jesus College, the IF, and the University of Cambridge were awarded a major grant to support a project developing a 1.5°C-aligned corporate bond index led by IF Senior Research Associate Lily Tomson.
