EXPERTS ADVISORY

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, nearly 200 nations approved a global pact that calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels—a first. The deal also calls for tripling the use of renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency and slashing methane emissions.

University of Michigan experts can discuss the final meeting outcomes.

Jeremy Bassis is a professor of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering with expertise in sea level rise and coastal resilience. His research interests include projections of sea level rise and strategies to use those projections to develop equitable and just adaptation strategies. Bassis is director of the applied climate degree program.

“The outcome of COP28 has veered from disappointing to promising. However, the reality is that the international focus has always been misplaced,” he said. “Most of the climate action has been taking place at local and regional scales, and that is accelerating. Many cities and states already have carbon neutrality by 2050 goals, with steep cuts in emissions proposed by 2030. The action for the next couple of years is going to be in making those plans more than aspirational.”

Contact: 734-615-3606, jbassis@umich.edu

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Gregory Keoleian is a professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability and co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. He is also co-director of MI Hydrogen, U-M’s hydrogen initiative. Keoleian has led more than 100 research studies, analyzing life cycle energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and the costs of conventional and alternative vehicle technology, renewable energy technologies, buildings and infrastructure, consumer products and packaging, and a variety of food systems.

“In 2015, the Paris Agreement at COP21 set goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with targets of a 45% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Establishing that trajectory at COP21 was a major achievement,” he said. “COP 28 was a battle over wordsmithing, with a much less meaningful outcome.

“The oil industry pushed for language to ‘reduce the production and consumption of fossil fuels,’ while climate experts and advocates demanded language to ‘phase out of fossil fuels.’ The conference settled with an agreement to ‘transition away from fossil fuels.’ Emissions trajectories and national pledges are far from the Paris Agreement targets, and this conference did little to reassure vulnerable populations and future generations that the devastating consequences of climate change will be avoided.

“The Dubai conference was a ‘COP out.’ Greenwashing won’t stop deaths from heat stress, extreme weather events, and coastal flooding. The fundamental restructuring of our energy system needs to be accelerated through actions and accountability, not vague pronouncements.”

Contact: gregak@umich.edu

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Richard Rood is a professor emeritus of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering and a professor emeritus at the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is an expert on U.S. weather modeling and can discuss the connection between weather, climate and society. He is also a co-principal investigator at the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments, a federally funded partnership between U-M and Michigan State University.

“The COP28 statement on transitioning away from fossil fuels is like a person going to a therapist once a year and stepping a little bit closer to admitting an addiction,” he said. “It took until 2021 in Glasgow to get to any specific mention of fossil fuel emission reduction—for unabated coal. This year, we take another small step. That step is surrounded by encouragement to make wise choices, smart investments and ambiguous adjectives such as unabated.

“It is a small step, but it could be worse. There has been progress in the past 15 years on displacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. And the most encouraging news is that we might actually see peak emissions in 2025, which would, in fact, be news. That could be the ‘beginning of the end.’

“As a venue for action on reducing fossil fuel emissions, the COP is frustrating and slow. Its effectiveness is at the margins. Since the U.N. requires consensus statements that are notional and voluntary, should we count on this as a primary mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

“We cannot rely on a global pact to phase out fossil fuels. In such a complex and global problem, we need to encourage regional and national efforts and scale up practices that are successful. There is a sure way we can reduce emissions: We stop buying fossil fuels. As long as we buy, there will be production.”

Open Climate

Contact: rbrood@umich.edu

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Volker Sick, professor of mechanical engineering at the College of Engineering, is the faculty director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and the director of the Global CO2 Initiative. The initiative aims to accelerate the development and deployment of commercially viable technologies that capture and convert carbon dioxide, in collaboration with research organizations and industrial partners around the world.

“The outcome of COP is encouraging, but we must now ensure that real action will be taken,” he said. “With a rapid reduction in fossil carbon use, we must ensure that we will have alternative carbon sources. Biomass will help, but capacities will be limited and not sufficient to meet demand.

“Harvesting carbon dioxide from air and water and converting it to products becomes paramount, and this will be the key to building up a circular carbon economy.”

Contact: vsick@umich.edu

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Jonathan Overpeck is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is an expert on climate and weather extremes, sea-level rise, the impacts of climate change and options for dealing with it. He served as a lead author on the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 and 2014 reports.

“As the globally warmest year on record wraps up, with thousands killed by climate change around the planet, the COP28 achieved a last-minute modest breakthrough—a much needed commitment to transition away from fossil fuel use,” he said.

“A major question remains, however. Can the fossil fuel and power utility industries be trusted to work toward this goal in good faith? Time will tell, but the phaseout from fossil fuel use must be swift if we are to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

“Short-term goals in this decade must be ambitious, and they must be met. The wealthy countries behind the pollution that causes climate change must take the lead in the rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, and this includes helping less affluent countries do the same in a manner that supports their development plans and increases their resilience to the climate change that they have been forced to endure.”

Contact: overpeck@umich.edu