Seven people to watch at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai

Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! To all of the PR people who emailed me yesterday about interviews at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai: Thanks for your notes, and sorry I can’t respond to each one or do each interview. (I also need to block off time in Dubai to, uh, write this newsletter.)

In today’s edition, we’ll cover the first transatlantic flight powered by 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel, a new geothermal project in Nevada, and Pope Francis’s cancellation of his trip to COP28. But first:

Seven people who could help shape the outcome of COP28

More than 70,000 politicians, diplomats, activists, business leaders and journalists will descend on Dubai this week for the COP28 climate talks . Even King Charles III has said he will attend despite the war in the Middle East.

Yet a tiny fraction of the attendees will actually shape the outcome of the high-stakes talks to save the planet. Here are seven we’re watching:

Al Jaber wears three hats: president of COP28, chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil and chairman of the United Arab Emirates’ renewable energy arm.

The second hat has caused the most consternation among climate activists. They say putting an oil executive in charge of global climate talks is tantamount to putting a tobacco executive in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty.

“There is some chance that having an oil CEO running the talks creates a counterintuitive capability for big change,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the most vocal climate advocates on Capitol Hill. “But I think the chances of that are extremely small.”

Al Jaber’s defenders say he is uniquely qualified to prod other state-run oil companies to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. He is currently working to corral these companies , which sit on 90 percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves, to commit to eliminating their methane emissions by 2030.

The U.S. special climate envoy, who helped President Barack Obama clinch the landmark 2015 Paris agreement , will be one of the top American officials at the summit’s outset, which President Biden has decided to skip . And his legacy is very much on the line in Dubai.

Kerry, who caught covid-19 at last year’s COP27 talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, wants to clamp down on coal this year. He is pursuing an agreement for an immediate end to the permitting of new coal plants that lack technology to capture their emissions, said a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

But Kerry, who will turn 80 on the summit’s penultimate scheduled day, shouldn’t expect any birthday presents from delegates from developing countries. They have slammed the United States, the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, for so far failing to contribute to a fund to help poor nations cope with climate disasters.

The veteran Chinese climate negotiator will attend the summit instead of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. It will be the last global climate confab for Xie, who plans to retire in December.

Xie has a long-standing relationship with Kerry, and the two men announced a surprise agreement this month to collaborate on emissions-cutting efforts. However, their statement was silent on whether Beijing will stop building new coal plants at a rapid clip.

She chairs the 46-member negotiating bloc that represents the least-developed countries, including Pacific islands and more than half of the countries in Africa. She also runs the climate change division of Senegal’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development.

As the first woman to lead the 22-year-old bloc, Diouf Sarr has called for addressing the gender imbalance at U.N. climate talks. (Reinforcing her point, she’s one of only two women on this list.)

The European Union’s new climate action commissioner is heading to COP28 after just two months on the job. He was appointed in October to replace Frans Timmermans, whostepped down in August to return to Dutch politics.

Environmentalists were initially skeptical of Hoekstra, a former executive and Dutch finance minister with little experience in climate diplomacy. But their skepticism has softened after he signaled plans to crack down on fossil fuel subsidies and committed to ambitious post-2030 climate targets.

The Brazilian president was greeted like a rock star at last year’s summit in Egypt, where environmentalists cheered his plans to halt deforestation of the Amazon . Preliminary data shows forest loss in the Amazon fell to a five-year low between August 2022 and July 2023.

That could further boost Lula’s standing ahead of COP30, which Brazil is bidding to host in 2025. At the same time, however, the country could catch flak from climate activists for increasing production from its major oil and gas reserves.

The climate envoy for the low-lying Marshall Islands is one of the loudest voices urging wealthy countries to contribute to a fund for “loss and damage” — U.N. jargon for the irreversible effects of climate change.

“We need to leave COP28 with a fund that is alive and that has real, meaningful money. That would show we are actually in this together,” Stege said in an interview. “It would show those who have done the most to create this crisis are willing to help those who have done the least, and who are affected in the worst ways.”

Corporate commitments

A plane fueled by fat and sugar has crossed the Atlantic Ocean

For the first time, a commercial plane flew across the Atlantic Ocean yesterday without burning fossil fuels, The Washington Post’s Nicolás Rivero reports.

Virgin Atlantic said the test flight from London to New York was powered by 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, a broad category of jet fuel that generates fewer carbon emissions than standard kerosene blends. This flight’s fuel was made from waste fats and plant sugars and emits about 70 percent less carbon than petroleum-based jet fuel, according to a news release.

Experts say SAF could one day play a big role in shrinking the aviation industry’s carbon footprint. But its production and use is minimal today; it accounts for about 0.1 percent of airlines’ total fuel consumption. Tuesday’s test flight is likely to be a one-time occurrence until SAF becomes much less expensive and more widely available.

Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are trying to jump-start the growth of the SAF market. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act offers tax credits to airlines that buy the low-carbon fuel, while in Europe, airlines are required to use 70 percent SAF by 2050.

Google’s new geothermal project is up and running

A first-of-its-kind geothermal project backed by has started to deliver carbon-free electricity to the grid in Nevada, Canary Media’s Maria Gallucci reports.

The 3.5 megawatt pilot project became operational this month, Google and geothermal developer Fervo Energy announced yesterday. The tech company will use the clean electricity to power some of its energy-hungry data centers, which it is aiming to make carbon-free by 2030.

“Enhanced” geothermal developers such as Fervo use horizontal drilling techniques to reach heat deep below ground. Many of these techniques were first pioneered by the oil and gas industry.

At the moment, geothermal energy supplies about 3.7 gigawatts of electricity in the United States, accounting for roughly 0.4 percent of total U.S. generation. But according to the Energy Department, it could provide 90 gigawatts of clean and flexible power by 2050, assuming more systems such as the one in Nevada come to fruition.

International climate

Pope Francis cancels trip to COP28 on doctor’s orders

Pope Francis yesterday canceled his trip to Dubai for COP28 on doctor’s orders as he recovers from the flu and lung inflammation, the Vatican said, Nicole Winfield reports for the Associated Press.

The 87-year-old pontiff had been scheduled to address world delegates on Saturday at the event, where he would have been the first pope to attend the gathering. Francis has long advocated for climate action, and last month he warned that “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

Until the decision Tuesday, the Vatican had said the trip would proceed as planned, even though Francis caught the flu last week and canceled other appearances over the weekend.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement that the pope’s condition was improving, but “the doctors have asked the pope not to make the trip planned for the coming days to Dubai.”

“Pope Francis accepted the doctors’ request with great regret,” he added.

In the atmosphere

our Spotify wrapped just dropped pic.twitter.com/dt0VvFDLIp

— Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation November 28, 2023 Thanks for reading!