Magdalena Davis: One day at COP28

The alarm rings at 6:15 am; it's already bright outside. After my morning wash, I put on long clothes covering my legs and arms, grab porridge and strong Indian tea and head out into the 30 degree Dubai morning.

On my first day here, it took me 24 minutes to walk to the metro station; today, I make it in half that time—I take a shortcut through the private parking lot of the apartment building next door, then mimic a few Indian workers and walk between the villas to avoid crossing the eight-lane intersection where yesterday I lingered for eight minutes.

Soon, I'm on the right side of the subway entrance. The first two trains were so full that I couldn't board. They say that the third time is lucky, and in my case, it's true; I successfully squeezed into the mass of bodies, filling all the space. I'm in the female carriage (I don't ride any other), so the involuntary body contact is not as confrontational as if I were one carriage down.  

For the first few stations I can't budge, the crowd prodding me from side to side depending on who is trying to get off. At least I have a good view, my blonde head towering over the other women, primarily petite Asian women. As we pass through the centre of Dubai, the carriage becomes less crammed and gradually, more female climate conference delegates board.

From crowds to crowds

An hour and a half after leaving the hotel, I finally take the escalator from the metro station to the Expo2020 venue and on to the next phase of today's conference day—the queue. Entrance to the venue is controlled through a security checkpoint similar to the one at the airport. The flow of traffic is regulated by the organisers using barriers, detours, taping and shouts to direct the crowd into a serpentine progression so as not to create too long of a queue. It takes between 20 minutes (that's if you're lucky) and 2 hours (that's if you're not, like me the day before yesterday)—depending on how many of the 97,000 registered participants happen to arrive at the same.

I'm lucky today; it looks like half an hour. "Imagine if they started using asphalt instead of concrete for roads in India", I overhear a snippet of conversation between two English-speaking young men behind me. "It has completely changed our predictions about demand in the local market. The financial outlook for cement plants is off; we will have to diversify", adds the same voice. A second male voice replies: "We will focus on Africa; according to the analysis, new markets are opening up there, and there is a lot of money to be made. Remember Jim? He was in the class with us. He's a pretty big deal now. I went to see him yesterday after the presentation and...." The rest of the conversation gets drowned out in the organiser's instructions, who separates us at the security checkpoint. Unfortunately, I never get to find out what business Jim deals in. But my money would be on one of the 2,000 registered fossil fuel industry lobbyists rather than a climate activist.

Also, what can you expect at a climate conference? 

Noble covers

I throw my freshly x-rayed bag over my shoulder and have my ID scanned at the gate. Unlike on the first day, when I would have reminded the uninitiated observer of a desperate orienteer ("...this is supposed to be Building 89 somewhere...!"), today I step in the right direction and within minutes, I am sitting in a refrigerator, sorry, in an air-conditioned room, at a coordination meeting of the international organisation Climate Action Network (CAN), of which People in Need is a member.

As the name suggests, CAN is active in climate protection and works with many governmental and non-governmental organisations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We begin by discussing the positions of each country on the agenda under discussion.

French members of CAN will criticise President Macron for taking advantage of the situation to push his own interests to build new nuclear power plants. We inform each other about how much our countries are planning to contribute to the various climate funds. For example, in addition to the Green Climate Fund, there is also the Adaptation Fund and now the Loss and Damage Fund. 

The latter was already agreed upon last year at COP27 in Egypt. However, the rules of disbursement and the first financial contributions were not decided until the first day here at COP28. Despite the many question marks, it was an international success, which the COP President Sultan Al Jaber ( who is also the Minister of Industry of the United Arab Emirates and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) needed and made good use of. This is because it diverted uncomfortable media attention away from his conflict of interest and leaked plans to use COP28 to strike new oil and gas supply deals. Naysayers say that the Loss and Damage Fund will be the first and last success of this COP.

Climate funds: acceleration and expansion

As the CAN coordination meeting ends, I hurry to another part of the campus for the presentation of the new Green Climate Fund strategy. At the COP, there are about 15 parallel events taking place every half hour in the UN zone (the blue zone)—press conferences, working group meetings, lectures, workshops, discussion panels, and exhibitions. Another programme takes place in the so-called green zone, which is also open to the public. That's why I always have to prepare my daily programme according to pre-set priorities; otherwise, it's impossible to navigate during the day... and it's impossible to get everything done.

At the Green Climate Fund event, the need to accelerate funding for projects in countries whose people are suffering from the extreme effects of climate change was the main topic of discussion. This is the fund to which Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has pledged to contribute $4 million for the Czech Republic in the period 2024-2027. It currently has $13.5 billion available, with the goal of raising at least $50 billion annually by 2030. Together with other funds, the international goal is to raise $100 billion each year.

In reality, however, it takes many times more to tackle climate change—$2.7 trillion a year to be precise. This is the investment needed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. This would ensure that the average global temperatures do not rise above 1.5°C above the level of 1900. Such investment would also enable the funding adaptation measures for those changes that can no longer be reversed, and last but not least, money for loss and damage to people who no longer even have anything to adapt—for example, because their villages and livelihoods have gone under the sea or disappeared with massive landslides.

"Do you have time for coffee?" writes a friend who has flown in with a government delegation. Fortunately, he is not far away. Looking at the queue at the café, it turns out to be a juice stand. We exchange impressions of the conference, discuss the preparations for the joint international event that awaits us in six months, and then we both run off to our respective duties.

A just transition: education, jobs and clean energy for all

'm spending the next hour in the company of experts on Just Transition to Sustainable Solutions, organised by the International Labour Organization (ILO), one of the oldest specialised agencies of the United Nations, in the Just Transition Pavilion.

The discussion starts with exciting information that the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate protection could create some 25 million new jobs by 2030. Given that about 6 million jobs dependent on the fossil fuel industry are expected to disappear at the same time, the pure math of the transition to green technologies and sustainable practices comes out to 18-19 million new jobs. 

The discussion suggested that the way forward is through investment in education, in reducing the systemic disadvantage of women in society and in building the resilience of the younger generation who will have to face many of these challenges for most of their lives. I was also intrigued by the example of modelling the impact of transition changes in regions in Indonesia, which suggests that any significant changes in one region (population of about 60,000) will have a domino effect on at least two other regions (transport, social, access to services, etc.). This is a good reminder that the involvement of science and the cooperation of local governments are vital parts of the process.

The Invisible Czech Republic and the vision for the future

As the discussion draws to a close and the moderator summarises the conclusions, I quietly slip away and head to an informal meeting with representatives of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Environment, and the Association for International Affairs. I can't quite fit lunch in, so I at least buy a lemonade on the way to replenish my blood sugar.

We meet outside next to one of the main buildings, where there is a pleasant sitting area under the trees, unlike the surrounding hot concrete. We discuss how each of us reads the speeches of the individual countries, how the Czech Republic fits into the overall picture—I dare to make the unspoken conclusion that it is quite invisible. And I suggest that at a future COP, we could work together to raise its profile, for example through some of People in Need's programmes abroad. At the end we arrange a follow-up meeting back in the Czech Republic and then head back to our various commitments.

Climate change impacts women more

I'm settling into one of the main plenaries well in advance; this will soon prove a good strategy. The hall is soon crowded and those who arrive at the last minute are no longer allowed in. This is a panel discussion on women and climate protection, featuring—and also partly moderated by—former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The panel includes a number of exceptional women leaders such as Sima Sami Bahous (UN Women), Melanie Nakagawa (Microsoft), Kristen Tilley (Australian Climate Change Ambassador) and Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim (President of the Chad Indigenous Association), among many others.

After all, data on the positive contribution of women to innovative solutions across business, government and local communities has long existed. The closing speech will be given by another former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, who will stress that men, in particular, can contribute to the rapid achievement of equality for women in society.

The panel is a huge success and a number of discussion groups form in the auditorium after the panel ends. But I can't stay long, because I have a presentation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) later in the evening. It is to provide comments from the working group leaders on the IPCC's 6th Synthesis Report, published last March, and the entire IPCC leadership will be at the presentation. 

Last minutes to 12:00

I arrive at the building at the other end of the campus just in time to sit down again. The IPCC chairman, Jim Skea, welcomes a full house, and the scene is all about research, statistics and forecasts. Sentences such as "Global emissions continue to rise in all categories of greenhouse gases", "The Earth is no longer a natural planet; it is under too many human pressures", "With each increase in global warming, climate extremes in each region will widen and deepen", "3.3 million people are exposed to the life-threatening impacts of climate change" and "Every region must prepare for the cascade of risks associated with climate change, such as a decline in food production, an increase in food prices, reduced household economic income, deteriorating health and reduced quality of life".

Fortunately, there are also more positive phrases, such as "There are many different opportunities to strengthen climate protection." One of the first outputs we can expect from the IPCC in the next few weeks is a special report on climate protection in cities. This report will be important because cities accumulate the impacts of climate change and also have large concentrations of people living in them.

When I leave the building, it is already dark outside, and I feel that I have had enough for today. On the way back, I fall asleep on the subway—and sleep like a log. Fortunately, I wake up in time to get off in our Indian neighbourhood and finally overeat at one of the excellent Indian restaurants on the way to the hotel. Back in my hotel room I have a quick shower, thencrawl into bed, laptop propped on my knees, and set my agenda for the next day. 

Twenty minutes after midnight, when I slam my laptop shut and set my alarm for 6:15, the numbers from my last lecture are running through my head. I wonder if the closed-door negotiations on the text of the Paris Agreement's emissions inventory targets (the so-called global stocktake), which we as humanity are still "miles away from solving with only minutes to go until the 12th," as UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his opening speech on the first day, have made any progress today.

Science fiction?

We shall see. Night.