- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
The COP process seems to have the ability to bring out the best and the worst in me.
I always consider these annual UN events an anomaly –– its the ‘dreamscape’ of what climate action could be, and also a prime example of everything that is wrong with climate action. Hundreds of cultures coming together to talk about climate change. Greenwashing and fossil fuel lobbyists taking up too much space. All at the same time.
As I close out my first 24 hours in Dubai, I’ve already been on a rollercoaster of emotions. I think this is the reality of anyone thinking about climate change for days on end, but there’s something about being at COP that makes it feel heavier and lighter simultaneously.
I know this might not make sense, but let me try to explain.
Dubai is beautiful. It’s a city that makes you look. Burj Khalifa glitters hundreds of floors into the sky. The architecture is futuristic and modern — orbs, and silver, and strange angles that make you question, “how’d they do that?” It’s a place that visually inspires the thought that anything can be possible; creativity in this way is thriving.
Dubai also hasn’t earned my trust. The 20-foot-high advertisements gracing bridges and highways as you drive into the city boast large businesses partnering with COP28 with vague taglines. “Towards Tomorrow Together.” Luxury car dealerships line the highways, selling fossil fuel lifestyles. Indoor ski hills and penguins are a taxi-ride away even though we’re in the middle of the desert. It’s a place that seems to do things “just because they can.”
I’m reeling a bit from the juxtaposition. I think it’s capturing exactly how I feel about climate change action right now. Everything is possible, and yet we’re not committing to changing how we survive, as human beings, on this planet.
Part of my role as crafting the negotiations summary for the Window into COP digests is to be well-informed about COP happenings, narratives, actions, and failings. I read so many articles about the big announcements and progress, and then I read about how they’re actually just pledges, not action. I read about the innovative solutions happening in the Global South, and then I read some more about how they’re not getting funded with anywhere near the amount of capital they need. I read about closed door meetings. I read about inaccessibility. I read about false solutions and a lack of ambition.
As I prepared to leave our Airbnb for my first day on the ground this morning (attending a side event called the Climate Action Innovation Zone), I was overwhelmed. I had just finished all that reading for today’s digest, and I couldn’t shake this sad, deep feeling in my gut. Like even though I’m here, and we’re all here, doing what we can, we’re also part of the problem. Thoughts like, “It’s too big.” We can’t do it at the scale we need to.
And then I got up and I went to the Innovation Zone, and my entire mood shifted. And it’s because of the people I met. The people I connected with from around the world.
Someone from Moscow who works at a climate tech company. She sends her daughter to school in Dubai, and she’s worked in the business sector for more than 20 years. She believes that businesses have a role to play.
A young woman from Kenya who makes biochar, a material created from biomass waste that increases soil fertility and decreases drought. She was representing Kenya and Uganda, trying to build momentum for a community-based project that could help farmers in her region.
A man from Scotland who was passionate about waste management and providing services to communities on how to actually change their habits. He was advocating for all islands, from the Global North to the Global South, to decarbonize urban life and share their learnings. My favorite line? “The world is just one big island. And we’re all on it.”
As I settle down for the evening and prepare to enter the Blue Zone tomorrow, I’m ruminating on one thing that hasn’t left me since this morning.
The climate crisis is truly a connection crisis. An inability to talk to each other.
To move each other. To inspire the understanding of why a specific solution matters to one specific community, and why it doesn’t work for others. And it’s not our fault, but it also is entirely our fault. There’s so many factors at play on why climate change is hard to communicate about, and why it’s hard to understand one another in general. An inability to see the world, and each other, in all of the gray areas.
The climate crisis isn’t this or that. It’s all of the above. It’s every option from the solutions buffet, please, so we can phase out fossil fuels while also decarbonizing every part of our society. It’s holding leaders and businesses accountable, and giving land back to Indigenous communities. It’s scaling innovative solutions that involve tech, and agriculture, and education, while also pouring funding into communities getting ravaged by impacts.
I’m eager to connect with more people tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until I fly out next week.
Selfishly, so I can feed the part of me that finds so much joy in connecting with people who care just as much as I do. Because I need joy to sustain this work. But I need the deep, sad feeling in my gut to ground me in how much losing this planet as we know it hurts; that I need to do something about it.
And collectively, so we can build a stronger climate movement and understanding, and make the world feel just a little bit smaller than it did the day before.
Lauren Boritzke Smith manages online audience engagement, communications and branding, marketing, and media outreach for Climate Generation’s programming, fundraising, and events. She was introduced to the climate justice movement through her interest in food access, public health, and stewarding plants – from reporting on food deserts, participating in WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), to advocating for the importance of diverse ecosystems. Lauren has bachelor’s degrees in Strategic Communications and English from UW-Madison, and approaches nonprofit communications and marketing with a community lens, bringing enthusiasm for the importance of art and story in building change and centering voices that are most impacted by the issue at hand. After college, Lauren served in AmeriCorps VISTA, building community outreach capacity and development strategies for a tutoring and creative writing nonprofit in St. Paul. In her free time, she enjoys traveling around to state and national parks with her husband and pup River, designing graphic art and pressing flowers, and playing the banjo.
The post The climate crisis is a connection crisis appeared first on Climate Generation.
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.