What does the COP28 deal to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels actually mean?

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2 years ago

December 14, 2023

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The latest UN climate change conference in Dubai has seen almost 200 countries commit to “transitioning away from fossil fuels” for the first time.

COP28 negotiators have described it as a “historic” and a “landmark” deal for global efforts to reach net zero by 2050.

But many climate scientists are questioning the impact it will have, with others sceptical about the COP process in general.

Here Sky News looks at what the deal means globally, for the UK and for you.

Fossil fuels, net zero and carbon capture

Despite being widely used, some of the key terms used in COP agreements such as the one struck in Dubai can feel ambiguous.

• Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, form naturally from dead plants and animals in the Earth’s crust. They contain hydrocarbon and can be extracted and burned as fuel for heat and electricity.

• Fossil fuel subsidies are defined as any action by a government to lower the cost of fossil fuel production or prices for energy consumers. In 2022 the International Monetary Fund estimated they were worth 7.1% of global GDP, the equivalent of $7trn (£5.6trn).

• Net zero is achieved when global greenhouse emissions balance out what we remove from the atmosphere. It’s not the same as ‘carbon neutral’, a label often used by businesses to imply a concerted reduction in carbon emissions and offsetting those they do produce.

• Carbon capture uses technology to trap carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels and store it underground to avoid any harmful effect to the environment.

• ‘Unabated fossil fuels’ refer to those where no attempt has been made to reduce their emissions through techniques such as carbon capture and storage.

What does the deal promise?

Transitioning away from fossil fuels in our energy systems, beginning in this decade, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science
Rapidly phasing down unabated coal and limiting the permitting of new and unabated coal power generation
Tripling renewable energy capacity globally and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030
Accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emissions energy systems, utilising zero and low carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century
Accelerating zero and low emissions technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies, such as carbon capture and utilisation and storage particularly in hard to abate sectors, and low carbon hydrogen production, so as to enhance efforts towards substitution of unabated fossil fuels in energy systems
Substantially reducing non-CO2 emissions, including, in particular, methane emissions globally by 2030
Accelerating emissions reductions from road transport through a range of pathways, including development of infrastructure and rapid deployment of zero emission vehicles
Phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible

What does ‘transitioning away’ mean – aren’t we doing it already?

There was agonising debate over the phrasing of the agreement’s clause on fossil fuels, with “transitioning away” eventually chosen over “phase out” or “phase down”.

It means that renewable energy will increase and be gradually substituted for fossil fuels across all global energy systems, according to Professor David Reay, expert in carbon management at the University of Edinburgh and co-chair of the Just Transition Commission.

He tells Sky News that unlike “phase out” there is no determined end point to a “transition”, with the language chosen to cater for countries still heavily reliant on fossil fuels without the economic means to adapt as quickly as others.

Professor Ilan Kelman, an expert in disasters and health at University College London, adds that most countries, including the UK and the US, have been “transitioning away from fossil fuels” for decades.

“This is simply the international community saying we agree that we are transitioning and will continue to transition.

“But what does it mean? Not a lot unless we act on it. It’s just legal terminology. We’ve had similar wording in agreements before that haven’t been acted on.”

At COP26 in Glasgow, “phase out” was used for a clause on coal, but this year it has arguably been diluted to “phase down” and “unabated coal”, which implies coal production can continue.

Professor Kelman adds: “It’s really up to governments, companies, non-profits and individuals to enact it and ensure they go forward with it.”

Is COP legally binding?

COP places no legal obligation on its signatories to meet the terms of its agreements.

In response, countries are expected to update their own climate change legislation and ‘nationally determined contributions (NDCs)’, drawn up as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, accordingly.

Professor Reay says this year’s COP agreement is “really important to set the stage” as new NDCs are currently being devised ahead of the next set of targets in 2025.

“By the time we get to COP in Brazil in 2025, we’ve got a possibility of a major closing of the gap in terms of what nations are committing to do and how that adds up to limiting warming close to 1.5C,” he says.

Professor Kelman is more sceptical, saying the lack of accountability and enforcement for countries who fall behind on their promises makes the process “meaningless”.

What does it mean for me?

If the near-200 countries signed up to COP28 honour the idea of “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, fewer companies are likely to invest in them, Professor Reay says.

This means that at a consumer level, renewable alternatives like electric cars and heat pumps will become more commonplace – making it easier for us to make green choices, he adds.

But Professor Kelman argues that while COP reinforces the need to reduce our electricity consumption, it is “up to governments local through to national to enact the legislation so people are not hurt” by climate initiatives.

“COP processes and these agreements don’t really have much of an impact on individuals,” he says.

“But as individuals, if we want cheaper electricity, to breathe cleaner air, and for our taxes not to go towards subsidising fossil fuels we have to tell our politicians we want those things.”

How does the UK stand?

The UK Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 and has been updated regularly by successive governments according to global warming estimates and COP agreements.

Like most countries, it has always had the goal of contributing to net zero by 2050.

But earlier this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was heavily criticised for delaying the ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles, weakening targets to phase out gas boilers, and issuing new gas and oil drilling licences in the North Sea.

While Professor Kelman describes the original UK climate legislation as “world leading”, he says the new North Sea licences are the “antithesis” of climate targets and the transition to a green economy.

Professor Reay chairs the Just Transition Commission, which advocates for progressive long-term sustainability strategies that do not come at a cost to individuals.

He warns that the UK government is using the concept of a ‘just transition’ as an “excuse to go slower on climate action”.

“We’re losing climate leadership not just morally, but it will also damage us economically if we carry on this line of essentially hiding from climate action,” he says.

Is COP28 strong enough for net zero by 2050?

Net zero targets depend first on whether countries adhere to the agreement, but also on how net zero is defined and calculated, Professor Kelman says.

“There are climate experts who say that net zero is so ambiguous and vague that it doesn’t mean much.

“So there’s a chance that countries might not meet their target or they’ll calculate it in such a way that doesn’t help in extensively reducing all greenhouse gases.”

But although we are “way off” the Paris target of limiting warming to 1.5C by the end of the century – instead on track for 3C – Professor Reay still believes COP28 “gets us closer” to net zero 2050 goals.

“This will provide a context for nations to ramp up their ambitions and move us closer,” he adds.

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Ukraine vows to continue drone attacks until there’s a peace deal

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4 hours ago

August 15, 2025

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Ukraine vows to continue drone attacks until there's a peace deal

Ukraine says there will be no let-up in its punishing long-range drone attacks on Russia until Moscow agrees to peace.

The warning comes ahead of Vladimir Putin meeting Donald Trump in Alaska.

Ukraine war latest: Trump prepares for summit with Putin

It was made in a rare interview with one of the key commanders of Ukraine’s drone forces.

We met in an undisclosed location in woods outside Kyiv. Brigadier General Yuriy Shchygol is a wanted man.

There is a quiet, understated but steely resolve about this man hunted by Russia. His eyes are piercing and he speaks with precision and determination.

His drone units have done billions of dollars of damage to Russia’s economy and their range and potency is increasing exponentially.

“Operations”, he said euphemistically, “will develop if Russia refuses a just peace and stays on Ukrainian territory”.

“Initially, we had a few drones a month, capable of striking targets 100 to 250 kilometres away. Today, we have drones capable of flying 3,000 to 4,000 kilometres, and that’s not the limit, it’s constrained only by fuel supply, which can be increased”.

His teams had just carried off one of their most complicated and most devastating strikes yet. A massive fire was raging in an oil refinery in Volgograd, or Stalingrad as it was once called.

“If the refinery is completely destroyed, it will be one of the largest operations conducted,” Brigadier General Shchygol said. “There have been other major targets too, in Saratov and Akhtubinsk. Those refineries are now either non-operational or functioning at only 5% of capacity.”

Oil is potentially Vladimir Putin’s Achilles heel. So much of his economy and war effort is dependent on it. Donald Trump could cripple Russia tomorrow if he sanctioned it but so has appeared reluctant to do so, a source of constant frustration for the Ukrainians.

Military activity on both sides has increased as diplomacy has picked up pace.

In another long-range attack, Ukraine says it hit the port of Olya in Russia’s Astrakhan region, striking a ship loaded with drone parts and ammunition sent from Iran.

But on the ground, Russian forces have made a surprise advance of more than 15km into Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine says the intrusion can be contained, but it adds to fears about its ability to hold back the Russians along the 1000-mile frontline.

Russia launches almost nightly drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities, killing civilians and striking residential targets.

General Yuriy says Ukraine picks targets that hurt Russia’s war effort, and it is constantly honing its capability.

“Each operation”, he says, “uses multiple types of drones simultaneously, some fly higher, others lower. That is our technical edge.”

How satisfying, I asked, was it to watch so much enemy infrastructure go up in smoke? He answered with detached professionalism.

“It does not bring me pleasure, war can never be a source of enjoyment. Each of us has tasks we could fulfil in peacetime. But this is war; it doesn’t bring satisfaction. However, it benefits the state and harms our enemy.”

Whatever happens in Alaska, General Yuriy and his teams will continue pioneering drone warfare, hitting Vladimir Putin’s economy where it hurts most.

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Israel releases video showing public humiliation of prominent Palestinian prisoner

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4 hours ago

August 15, 2025

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Israel releases video showing public humiliation of prominent Palestinian prisoner

The spectacle of Israel’s Itamar Ben-Gvir humiliating perhaps the most popular of all Palestinians in his prison cell was as unedifying as the national security minister’s extremist politics.

“You won’t win. Whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will erase him,” Ben-Gvir told Marwan Barghouti, the figurehead of secular Palestinian nationalism, who appeared shocked and scared.

His lawyer told Al-Arabiya TV that Ben-Gvir threatened him directly and that his life is in danger.

Imprisoned since 2002 on murder charges and sentenced to five life sentences plus an additional 40 years for his role in the second intifada, the 67-year-old had not been seen in many years.

The sight of this drawn, diminished figure will shock many across the Arab world, where he is both hugely popular and considered a potential Palestinian unity leader, were Israel to ever release him.

Barghouti’s face, his hands cuffed above his head, stares out from walls and buildings across the West Bank – a potent symbol of Palestinian suffering and resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation.

His more than two-decade imprisonment leaves him untarnished from the charges of corruption and ineffectiveness levelled at the Palestinian leadership, and opinion polls before 7 October 2023 saw his popularity exceed that of both Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political wing, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority condemned Ben-Gvir’s visit as an “unprecedented provocation and organised state terrorism”.

It is also a clear abuse of Ben-Gvir’s authority as national security minister, where he has ultimate oversight over Israel’s prison system and therefore direct access to the record number of Palestinian detainees currently imprisoned there.

Barghouti’s family say he has been held in solitary confinement since the 7 October attacks and has been subjected to brutal assaults, one of which left him severely injured.

Israeli mistreatment

Barghouti will be no stranger to Israeli mistreatment.

In an op-ed from jail to the New York Times in 2017, he detailed the first time he was tortured at the age of just 18, when an Israeli interrogator “forced me to spread my legs while I stood naked in the interrogation room, before hitting my genitals”.

He passed out from the pain, hitting his head, which scarred permanently. Afterwards, he wrote, the Israeli interrogator mocked him, saying he would “never procreate because people like me give birth only to terrorists and murderers”.

Barghouti’s release has been a key component of ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, with talks in February 2024 breaking down when Israel refused to let him go.

Despite international pressure on Israel to ensure the humane treatment of its prisoners, the ICRC has not been granted access to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention since the 7 October attacks.

String of provocations

Ben-Gvir and his fellow ultra-nationalist coalition partner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both excel at the provocative act.

Less than two weeks ago, Ben-Gvir was filmed visiting the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem where he said he prayed, which is in direct violation of the status quo agreement governing relations between Muslims and Jews at the key holy sites on Temple Mount.

Bear in mind, it was Ariel Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount in 2000, which launched the second intifada, and you will get a sense of quite how incendiary that was.

Similarly, on Thursday, in what appeared to be a direct response to international calls for recognition of Palestinian statehood, Bezalel Smotrich announced that Israel would start the long-delayed E1 settlement project between the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

This, he said, would “bury” any notion of a Palestinian state once and for all.

The video showing the public humiliation of a man championed by the likes of Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter as the Palestinian Mandela, was released just hours later.

It looks like an attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu‘s ultra-nationalist allies to send a message both to Palestinians and to international supporters of Palestinian statehood that a state, and its potential leadership, is nothing but a pipe-dream.

‘Still pursuing’ Barghouti in prison

In 2013, Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, launched a campaign for his release and that of all Palestinian prisoners from Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned, to draw attention to the similarities between South Africa during the apartheid era and the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

After the release of this latest video, she wrote on her Facebook page that she barely recognised her husband and was scared to imagine what he had been subjected to.

But her words were also a rallying cry.

“They are still pursuing you, Marwan, and chasing you even in the solitary cell where you’ve been living for two years,” she wrote.

“I know that nothing shakes you except what you hear about the pain of your people, and nothing defeats or pains you except the lack of protection for our sons and daughters. You are one of the people: wherever you are, you are among them, for them, with them.”

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India ‘will not tolerate’ nuclear blackmail, says prime minister Narendra Modi in warning to Pakistan on Independence Day

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4 hours ago

August 15, 2025

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India 'will not tolerate' nuclear blackmail, says prime minister Narendra Modi in warning to Pakistan on Independence Day

India’s Prime Minister has warned Pakistan it will not succumb to, or tolerate, nuclear blackmail.

In Narendra Modi’s 12th consecutive speech from the ramparts of Delhi’s iconic Red Fort, he addressed the nation celebrating its 79th Independence Day from colonial Britain.

He laid emphasis on ‘Atmanirbhar’, or self-reliance, in defending India by increasing and developing a more powerful weapons system for security.

Mr Modi said: “India has decided, we will not tolerate nuclear blackmail. We have established a new normal. Now we will not distinguish between terrorists and those who nurture and support terrorists. Both are enemies of humanity”

This comes on the back of the conflict in May after the killing of 26 people by terrorists in Pahalgam, Kashmir. In retaliation, India launched attacks on terrorist infrastructure across the border.

Pakistan retaliated, which quickly escalated into both countries launching a series of missiles, armed drones and heavy gunfire on each other.

After four days of fighting, a ceasefire was agreed to between the two nuclear-armed neighbours that have fought wars and many skirmishes over decades.

US President Donald Trump intervened saying: “I know the leaders of Pakistan and India. I know [them] very well. And they’re in the midst of a trade deal, and yet they’re talking about nuclear weapons… this is crazy.

“I’m not doing a trade deal with you if you’re going to have war, and that’s a war that spreads to other countries, you’ll get nuclear dust. When they start using nuclear weapons, that stuff blows all over the place and really bad things happen.”

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif immediately thanked the American president for the ceasefire and bringing about peace and stability in the region, also recommending him for the Nobel Peace Prize as a genuine peacemaker and his commitment to conflict resolution.

Mr Modi’s government is yet to acknowledge President Trump’s intervention and maintains that the Pakistani military initiated the ceasefire process and India agreed to halt military action.

In parliament, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said: “There was no leader… nobody in the world that asked India to stop its operations. This is something the prime minister also said. There was no linkage of trade in any of these conversations and there was no talk between the prime minister and President Trump.”

Mr Modi’s speech is an audit of the year gone by and his future plans of strengthening the economy and of self-reliance in the face of very high tariffs imposed by President Trump for buying discounted Russian oil.

He spoke of bringing in structural reforms, welfare schemes for farmers, women’s empowerment, employment, technology, clean energy and the green industry, but also raised concerns about rising obesity levels.

India has the fourth largest economy in the world and is expected to be the third largest before Mr Modi’s current term ends in 2029.

Although when it comes to GDP per capita income, which serves as an indicator of individual prosperity, India is ranked 144 out of 196 countries.

The big economy illusion of GDP size has little to do with the well-being and fortune of its people, something the government refuses to acknowledge.

In its 2024 report, Paris-based World Inequality Lab said the inequality in India now is worse than under British rule. The research stated that 1% of the wealthiest Indians hold 40% of its wealth and enjoy a quarter of the nation’s income.

Comparing the ‘British Raj’ to the ‘Billionaire Raj’, the study said there are now 271 billionaires in the country and 94 new ones were added the previous year. The rise of top-end inequality in India has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration in the Modi years between 2014-15 and 2022-23.

With over 1.46 billion people, India is the most populous country, making up 17.8% of the global population.

More than half the country is under 30, and it has one of the lowest old-age dependency ratios, enabling productivity, higher savings and investment.

A key challenge for the government is to match employment with its growing young population. It’s even more critical as artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in production and services, eating into jobs.

Last week, President Trump levied an additional 25% tariff on India for buying Russian oil, taking the total tariff level to over 50% and hitting Indian manufacturing and trade.

“I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together,” the president said.

Since the Ukraine war, India has been buying discounted Russian crude and its imports have risen from 3% in 2021 to about 35% to 40% in 2024.

Defending its stance, India says it does so for its energy security and to protect millions of its citizens from rising costs.

It’s a national day of celebration with patriotic fervour all around, but also a grim reminder of the tragedy of partition – the trauma of which still haunts its people.