COP 28 In the Middle East, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The Conference of the Parties has a long history attached to it. 

Held yearly, the first of these COP meetings took place back in late March of 1995 in Berlin. Just 2,044 representatives were in attendance, and the parties agreed to start talking about how the world could reduce emissions in the 21st century. 

Two years later, the Kyoto Protocol was implemented at COP 3 in Japan to control GHG emissions. It was a binding agreement by developed countries to hit emission targets between 2008 and 2012. 

Attendance at these early COPs were rather small, and it wasn’t until COP 21 in Paris that things really accelerated. 

In 2015, more than 30,000 participants met in France and inked the Paris Agreement. 

Finally, a solution to climate change, right?

We’ve talked before about the details behind the Paris Agreement, and its long-term goals to limit global warming to 1.5℃. 

It was an ambitious, bold target… and it failed abysmally.

Well, it wasn’t a total failure on everyone’s part. 

After all, emissions in the United States have been falling for more than a decade thanks to the availability of cheap, abundant natural gas, and an aggressive push for renewables. These two factors (mostly the first) led to a steep decline in U.S. coal consumption. 

In the EU, the nearly radical push for renewable energy has led to record consumption of fossil fuels in member countries. This push continues even though countries like Germany are in a deep energy crisis right now after effectively killing its own nuclear power and natural gas industries. We’ll save that story for another time. 

And if you haven’t guessed who the two biggest emission culprits are, I’ll let a UN Emissions Gap Report from 2022 show you clear as day:  

For the past two weeks, more than 84,000 people gathered in Dubai for COP 28 to finally sort this mess out. 

Hey, 28th time’s the charm, right?

COP 28: Let the Bickering Begin

When the UN allowed its climate conference to be hosted in the heart of the Middle East, you knew there were going to be fireworks. 

Believe me, it did not disappoint on that front. 

How could it? 

The COP 28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jabar, not only said that phasing out fossil fuels to limit climate change would not pave the way for sustainable development, but he also mentioned that there’s no science behind the claim that it would. 

It’s like watching the Three Stooges slap each other, and all we can do is sit back and make more popcorn. 

But COP 28 wasn’t completely without hope…

Buried beneath the drama was an interesting development. 

Roughly two dozen countries — including the United States, Canada, Japan, just to name a few — signed a declaration that one of the key pieces to limiting a global temperature rise to 1.5℃ by 2050 was nuclear energy. 

In fact, they went a step further and pledged to triple global nuclear generation by 2050!

This would mean deploying approximately 40 GW of nuclear power every year for the next 27 years. 

What’s even more interesting is that China was conspicuously absent from this pledge, yet the country is already aggressively pushing for more nuclear power, with 22 plants currently under construction and more than 70 being planned. 

If you think that’s a daring task to undertake, then just remember that Poland announced plans last month to replace 80% of its fossil fuel demand with nuclear energy, and is now working with the United States to build its first plant. 

Thing is, the money for individual investors like us ISN’T in building these nuclear plants, it’s in fueling them — let me show you how.

Until next time,

Keith Kohl

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A true insider in the technology and energy markets, Keith’s research has helped everyday investors capitalize from the rapid adoption of new technology trends and energy transitions. Keith connects with hundreds of thousands of readers as the Managing Editor of Energy & Capital, as well as the investment director of Angel Publishing’s Energy Investor and Technology and Opportunity.

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