A new version of the centerpiece text being discussed at Cop28 – the global stocktake – dropped on Friday afternoon. And it’s grown by three pages.
Everything is still on the table.
On fossil fuels, there are four choices. All are anchored around a “phase out”, with reference, variously, to “the best available science”, 1.5C, the Paris Agreement, “unabated”, peak consumption, and net zero CO2 emissions.
None explicitly refers to justice, equity, or differentiated pathways for developed and developing countries, campaigners noted – which may be a sticking point for the latter group.
Like its previous iteration, every paragraph comes with a “no text” choice. It leaves the door open to binning the entire energy package, including the tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling of efficiency by 2030. That’s a possibility a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, China, India and Iraq, floated two days ago.
Countries’ positions are still far apart, it was clear in a plenary on Friday morning.
Samoa, on behalf of small island states, not only pushed for a phase out, but an end to new investment in fossil fuel infrastructure – a Cop first.
Bolivia, on behalf of “like-minded” developing countries, and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Arab Group, said any agreement should focus on limiting emissions and not their sources. In a fiery speech, the Bolivian negotiator said his group would not “compromise our right to development”.
The most practical way to build a bridge is with finance, observers told Climate Home. Developing countries want to know money will be available to support an ambitious outcome.
Ministers, assemble
As usual, the Cop presidency has tasked pairs of developed and developing country ministers to chat with their peers and resolve the thorniest issues.
After hurrying through a back door from the plenary yesterday afternoon, Sultan Al Jaber lined up in the unimaginatively named press conference room 1 with his chosen eight.
Despite rumours of changes to the line-up, they are the same eight who have been coordinating talks since September – much longer than they’re usually assigned for.
Leading on the global stocktake are South Africa’s Barbara Creecy and Denmark’s Dan Jorgensen. Egypt’s Yasmine Fouad and Canada’s Steven Guilbeault lead on means of implementation – money, to you and me.
Singapore’s Grace Fu and Norway’s Espen Barth Eide will lead on mitigation while Chile’s Maisa Rojas and Australia’s Jennifer McAllister lead on adaptation.
The group are mainly veterans, having taken similar roles at Cop26 and Cop27. It includes two IPCC authors (Fouad and Rojas), a former rabble-rousing campaigner (Guilbeault) who has been to every Cop and an accountant who flew high in the corporate world before going into politics (Fu).
On top of this, the presidency has asked a number of nations including Canada to help him gather ideas on the most high profile issue – fossil fuel phase-out.
Beside his fellow ministers at the press conference, Jorgensen offered some motivational words. “Words on a piece of paper will not in itself save the climate, he said, “but if we agree, if we decide, we can make these words carry weight, make them instigate real change, and make a real difference.”
Activists to call for Gaza ceasefire
In Gaza, the Israeli military has now killed 17,000 people, a more than tenfold retaliation for the 1,200 Hamas killed in its 7 October incursion.
Israeli officials estimate a third of the dead in Gaza were combatants, meaning the majority of victims were civilians by any count.
In Dubai, activists want an end to the violence. They accuse the UN climate body (UNFCCC) of repressing their gestures of solidarity, with keffiyehs confiscated and Palestinian flags banned.
The head of War on Want Asad Rehman told reporters on Friday campaigners will hold a banner saying “ceasefire now, end occupation” at a march at 3.30pm today.
“If we’re going to be prevented of course that will be a serious problem,” Climate Action Network head Tasneem Essop said, wearing a keffiyeh and one of the lanyards the Palestinian pavilion are giving out in their national colours.
Rehman and Essop claimed the UNFCCC banned the phrase “ceasefire now” in demonstrations at the venue. A UNFCCC spokesperson denied this.
Waving any flag is prohibited by order of the UN Office of Safety and Security in New York. It made that directive on 7 October, the day Hamas attacked Israel.
Essop said that protesters will use the symbol of the watermelon instead – a fruit of black, white, red and green which has long been a stand-in for the Palestinian flag.
In brief
Put a lid on it – The Canadian government has proposed a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector, which accounted for 28% of national emissions in 2021. The draft regulation needs parliamentary approval. Campaigners celebrated the move, while calling for tighter targets.
Corporate watch – Less than 10% of corporate delegates at Cop28 represent companies with science-based emissions targets, according to Influence Map. Ikea, Iberdrola and Unilever are among the climate leaders, while Gazprom, Adnoc, ExxonMobil and Toyota are the most misaligned companies with a major presence.
Paris anniversary present? – The Cop28 presidency is keen to finish on 12 December: the scheduled end date and precisely eight years after the Paris Agreement was adopted. It started cleanly, with no agenda fight. Can it be the first to end punctually since Cops were in single digits?
The post Cop28 bulletin: Text grows with everything still to play for appeared first on Climate Home News.
Cop28 bulletin: Text grows with everything still to play for
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis
The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.
Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
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