Just weeks after the COP28 climate talks finished, it is business as usual for the host country, the United Arab Emirates, in expanding its oil and gas production.

Israel's brutal, bloody war on Gaza shows no sign of relenting, with nearly all the Gazan population displaced and Israel warning the war could go on for another year.

"We need a shift away from the business-as-usual threatening lives and wrecking the climate, but Azerbaijan appointing another lifelong oil man to lead the next UN climate talks pushes us closer to the abyss," said Rees.

COP28’s historic agreement sent a long overdue signal on the end of the fossil fuel era, but glaring loopholes in the agreement could be exploited as Japan hosts the ASEAN summit and Asia Zero Emissions Community Summit. 

“This letter adds to the unprecedented global momentum for a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout. People from around the world are joining over 100 countries that have now called for an end to oil, gas, and coal," said Elizabeth Bast.

Illustration by Pawel Kuczynski
Many of the largest CCS projects in the world overpromise and under-deliver, operating far below capacity.
An analysis by OCI of six of the leading CCS plants in the US, Australia, and the Middle East reveals that they are all either operating significantly below capacity, ranging from an estimated 10 to 60% capacity, or are designed only to capture a fraction of the emissions produced by the facilities they are attached to. In some cases, it is both.
Underperformance is the norm
Today, the total installed capacity of carbon capture projects operating worldwide is stated to be 49.7 million metric

Today at COP28, Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné said that the international oil major would call for the release of imprisoned Ugandan StopEACOP activists.

COP28 has the potential to be an historic moment in confronting the climate crisis. The COP28 Presidency has an opportunity to secure a transformational negotiated outcome, if it secures a robust negotiated energy package, including an unambiguous agreement to end all new oil and gas expansion, a clear call to equitably and rapidly phase out all fossil fuels, and a commitment to triple deployment of nature-positive and community-beneficial renewable energy and double energy efficiency.

As the U.S. government arrives in Dubai for the UNFCCC COP28 climate summit, frontline communities, youth, and civil society are planning to confront the Biden-Harris administration’s oil and gas expansion and urging a rapid fossil fuel phaseout. 

Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on carbon capture and storage (CCS), providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. Almost 80% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil via Enhanced Oil Recovery, while many of the world's largest CCS projects overpromise and underdeliver.