Climate Talks Call For A Transition Away From Fossil Fuels. Is That Enough?

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🗓️ 20 December 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

For the first time in its history, the United Nations climate conference concluded with a call to transition away from fossil fuels. But not all of the nearly 200 countries present at the meeting, known as COP28, were happy with the final agreement. Critics of the agreement had instead called for a clear path towards phasing out fossil fuels and pointed out a "litany of loopholes" in the final text. This episode, we look at the tensions and breakthroughs of the conference — and how far behind we are in limiting the devastating impacts that could be on the way.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Hey everyone, Regina Barbara here.
0:08.0	Every year countries from around the world meet in a huge summit.
0:11.0	It's about how to get climate change under control.
0:14.0	I congratulate all parties for this historic decision.
0:20.0	The talks just ended last week, and we want to know what happened and is the world any closer to slowing the pace of climate change?
0:27.0	Two of NPR's climate change reporters are here, Lauren Summer,
0:31.0	hi there, hey, and Julia Simon. Hello and this year the big debate was
0:36.4	around fossil fuels. Yeah we're talking about oil, gas, and coal. The world is
0:41.5	still burning a lot of them and and that, of course, is the main driver of climate change.
0:46.0	The question is, whether the world should stop using them altogether.
0:51.0	Okay, so I can see how this sets up an intense debate, like since some countries like the United Arab
0:56.6	Emirates, which hosted the talks, makes a lot of money exporting oil.
1:00.1	Right, but many developing countries are pushing for an end to fossil fuels because their very existence is on the line.
1:07.2	You know, if you're a small island nation, stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels are a massive threat. Communities are being
1:15.4	destroyed and you know the cost is enormous. Negotiator John Silk of the
1:20.0	Marshall Islands talked about that. I came here to build a canoe together for my country.
1:25.0	Instead, we had built a canoe with a weak and leaky hull, full of holes.
1:31.0	This whole summit, it's known as COP 28. It was held in the United Arab Emirates, again, one of the world's top oil exporters.
1:38.0	The oil industry had this big present. OPEC, the oil cartel. They had a pavilion, there was a record number of fossil fuel
1:46.1	lobbyists four times more than last year, first time an ExxonMobil, attended a cop.
1:52.8	Wow, okay, so that maybe changed the dynamic of this one?
	...

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