Inside the last few hours of COP
If three words could describe the last few hours before the end of COP28 in Dubai, “jitters”, “edginess” and “exhaustion” would be the most ideal. The conclusion of this COP process is a moment of heightened emotions and exertion; one that everyone wants to get over with quickly.
Attendees are huddled in small groups, having quiet conversations and, obviously, contemplating the expected outcome, due in hours. Others sit by themselves, nursing a coffee or water, eagerness written all over them.
In the main negotiation room, things are fraught. Even though the haggling has ended, there is a sense of tension. Save for a quick hello here and there, the pleasantries are long gone, their place taken over by indifference.
Cristina Rumbaitis captures it accurately, observing: ‘‘Walking into the conference centre this morning, I felt like everyone was coming here to battle. People were much more serious and quieter today. There has been less chatting and laughter.’’
This is not how things have been all week, the negotiator from Argentina explains. Even as the delegations from different groups could not agree on the substance, they were friendlier to each other, freely engaging in banter, laughter and even sharing meals.
‘‘There is a lot of checking phones to see if the text is uploaded. People are glued to their laptops,’’ Rumbaitis adds.
The anxiety is somewhat easy to understand. For the most part, it has to do with the implications of the outcome. It also has something to do with the fear of being
compromised. One negotiator says whatever you say and to whom at this stage might land you in an awkward, and even compromising, position. Some negotiators decline media interviews.
‘‘I have to be a little careful about what I say. I cannot burn too many bridges,’’ she says, implying she may already have put herself in trouble. ‘‘I just want to make sure there are no tensions between the different groups.’’
Then there are the streets in the conference centre. This edition of the COP was held at Dubai Expo City, a 1080-acre (4.38-square-kilometre) sprawl. Marked by heavy human traffic, banners and live TV interviews only a few days ago, the complex looks deserted.
At COP, protests and marches are the fodder for talking points. Also called ‘‘actions’’ in climate lingo, these are the free, boisterous and unrestrained tool of influencing discussions taking place in the tightly guarded negotiation rooms where access is limited to holders of special badges.
But as the D-day draws nearer, the streets are virtually deserted, the chants quietened and activity thawed. An atmosphere of uneasy quietness takes over. By then, the protesters, mostly members of civil society, have either left the conference or are still around, choosing to follow the proceedings quietly.
Those with energy to spare are holding their protests in silent vigils. Except for one youth protester who infiltrates a press briefing room and shouts down COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber. The woman is whisked away by the security.
‘‘By now, we are just waiting for the text. You cannot influence the outcome through protests anymore. Everything is kind of sealed now,’’ explains Derrick Chibeza, a Zambian campaigner who has been organising demonstrations at the conference.
At the media centre, the hub of global reporting on this climate conference, things are orbiting a different course. While other places are quieter and more deserted, things are just starting to come alive, and even get charged. Many reporting crews have left, relieved by others. Somehow, the hall is fuller, activity heightened and attention more focused.
From the look of things and conversations in this global newsroom, those staying are the hardcore, battle-hardened science reporters. They are veterans. They were in Sharm, Glasgow and Madrid and all the COPs before these. To them, this cliffhanger is a familiar territory.
Some journalists, with faces flushed and eyes swollen, are on back-to-back phone calls with their newsrooms. From their body language, the conversation is tense. They are working overtime. They have been so for two weeks. But editors are demanding for stories.
Other than anticipatory pieces, however, there is hardly much to file here. Everyone appears to be waiting for the big announcement: the COP28 outcome. For this moment, nerves are shredded and tempers lost.
At the makeshift smoking shed outside the media centre, journalists appear engaged in a chain-smoking match. One journalist from Mexico is on his fifth cigarette. He is seated
astride on the floor, one moment taking a drag off his cigarette, the next typing on his laptop that has obviously seen better days.
Everyone else here is blowing plumes of white smoke in the air, lost either in thought or their phone. When I ask one journalist to sum up how he feels about the conference and its possible outcome, his response is blunt. ‘‘It is a catastrophic screw-up.’’ Alastair Thompson is an editor at Scoop.
The New Zealander says there is no end in sight to this process. ‘‘Sultan Al Jaber (COP28 president) had said he wants this to finish tomorrow (today) at 11 am. This now seems impossible. Unless there is a consensus view to chalk the years’ work up as a failure, which is impossible to imagine.’’
It is now night-time in Dubai and the conference centre is a graveyard of silence. The atmosphere is one of a tense election night. To ease the pressure, or to stoke the fire, some personalities take to social media, their posts packed with either fury or sarcasm. Others express outright disappointment.
‘‘This COP is now on the verge of complete failure,’’ tweets former US Vice President Al Gore. The founder of Climate Reality argues that the impending outcome of this COP process is ‘‘even worse than many had feared”.
‘‘There are 24 hours left to show whose side the world is on. The side of humanity’s future or that of petrostates.’’
One professor describes the outcome as a ‘‘monument of schizophrenia.’’ Prof Jean-Pascal van Ypersele is referring to the text so far. ‘‘It first acknowledges, recognises, or notes the numerous and gigantic gaps between what is needed and what has been delivered up to now.’’
Then, he adds, it fails to do anything after the diagnosis. ‘‘There seems to be a total disconnect between the diagnosis and the treatment.... The prescribed treatment is a mixture of wishful thinking and magic.’’
To the academic, ‘‘you cannot negotiate with the laws of nature”.
For the negotiators, it is another sleepless night ahead. A night of long knives.