In mid-December 2023, the annual two-week global climate conference came to an end. The host country, the United Arab Emirates, has been proud of the remarkable results since the opening of the conference: more than 130 countries have pledged to work collectively to triple renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030, 50 state-owned and multinational companies (accounting for 40% of global oil production) have committed to methane emission reductions, and breakthrough consensus has been reached in areas such as climate resilience, food and agriculture, health, and finance. In addition to these declarations and initiatives, 198 Parties have adopted the first-ever Loss and Damage Fund (providing assistance to developing countries severely affected by climate disasters) and completed the first Global Climate Stocktake (identifying the gap between global action and targets and urging countries to increase their action)! For the first time ever, the word "First-ever" appears three times in the press release.
In fact, as with other major climate conferences, there are always 1-2 days before the successful conclusion of the conference, which is in a state of serious stalemate, the outcome document is either difficult to produce or has been sent back for revision due to lack of consensus, and everyone is waiting with their eyes on it, and speculation that the 2009 Copenhagen conference will be fruitless and the situation may be repeated has begun to haunt the venue. Fortunately, after that lesson, the international community is trying to avoid this "tragedy" and in any case to come up with a document that is acceptable to all. Against this background, there have been quite a few meetings in which one or two revisions have been the final word on the decision of the General Assembly, and they have become the "key gentlemen" who have decided success or failure.
This time the struggle arises with attitudes towards fossil fuels (i.e., coal, oil and gas). As we all know, the root cause of the climate crisis lies in the excessive emission of greenhouse gases, and the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is the burning of fossil fuels. The energy transition – the shift from fossil to non-fossil energy sources (renewables and nuclear) – has always been a focus of scientific research, but it was not until Glasgow 2021 that the first tangible mention of the energy transition began in the politically prominent outcome document of the climate conference, when the focus was on coal and coal power, calling for a "phasedown" of coal capacity. And the "sideways" of this word has a famous public case.
After the postponement of the Glasgow meeting in the United Kingdom in November 2021, the final version of the document, with the difficult mediation of the chair of the conference, Alok Sharma, was largely accepted, and the language on coal power was "phase out". At the closing plenary, when Mr. Sharma was about to ring the gavel for the adoption of the document, the representative of India held up a placard and requested that the words "phase out" be amended to read "phasedown". Sharma looked composed, inviting the audience to comment. Representatives of several countries took the floor and said with solemn faces: Although they are seriously dissatisfied with the on-the-spot revision, they have no intention of resuming the negotiations, because after all, it is not easy to achieve such an outcome. After listening to those statements, Chair Sharma spoke with difficulty: I am deeply sorry for the process of such a meeting, but it is extremely important to protect this text...... Before talking about "protect," the chairman, who had been unsmiling for two weeks, paused, and was visibly choked up when he spoke again. The venue was silent. A few seconds later, Mr. Sharma quickly returned to normalcy and passed the decision with a gavel, to thunderous applause. At the last press conference after the conference, Sharma explained that he was a bit out of control for a number of reasons: on the one hand, he had only slept about six hours in the last three days, and that he was already on the margins, and on the other hand, he had been under so much pressure in the last two days that he felt that the success or failure of the global response to the climate crisis was on his shoulders, and that he had to make sure that the decision to unite everyone was not in place.
How different are these two expressions – phasedown and phase out – from a Chinese perspective, it seems that the former refers to the process, while the latter focuses more on the result, and the difference does not seem to be so big. The British friend explained that they imply very different rates of decline, and that the latter needs to be faster in order to achieve phase-out and "phase change" faster, so the signal strength to the international community is very different. All right.
In the process of climate governance after the Glasgow meeting, as the climate crisis continues to spread, the general demand of the international community is to extend the constraints from coal power to all fossil energy sources, and at the same time call for the resumption of the use of the term "phase out". There is little disagreement about the expansion of the scope of control, and there is a tendency to come naturally, and the choice of those two expressions has been the focus since the beginning of the UAE meeting, making this meeting a sequel to the Glasgow meeting.
In the original text, various options coexisted, and it could only be described as a "list of elements", not a draft. During this period, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) issued a statement through Reuters, saying that OPEC does not support any statement about phasing out fossil energy, and that the small island states, which bear the brunt of the huge impact of climate disasters, firmly oppose the tepid "phasedown". The contradictions between the two boxes seem irreconcilable. Two days before closing, the full draft decision was finally released, and the key wording caused an uproar in the room: the text deliberately avoided "phasedown" and "phase out" in favor of "Reduce" in the attitude towards fossil fuels. It seemed to be weaker, and it immediately drew widespread criticism. The Bureau had to come forward to explain that this was deliberately done by the President of the General Assembly, Dr. Sultan, to test your bottom line.
The closed doors will continue. We suspect that it's time for the English language master to come into play. Sure enough, when that phrase — Transitioning away — popped up, everyone's eyes lit up. Everyone understands that it is it, and it is not running. It literally means "transition away from fossil fuels", and the translation of "Xindaya" is "farewell to fossil energy", which can refer to both the process and the outcome, and the focus is particularly strong on the direction and the signal released is particularly clear. Inside and outside the stadium, they were amazed, what a good word for compromise! Breaking the deadlock depended on language! I couldn't help but sigh once again that good language is really important, whether it is Chinese or English.
On the other hand, the repeated revisions and careful wording have made the supposedly more ambitious climate negotiations appear as a "play on words", leaving the outside world to be suspicious and discouraged. It can only be said that there is a natural gap between scientific understanding and political consensus, in the face of the climate crisis, scientists demand immediate and substantial global emission reductions, politicians are inevitably hesitant in the face of various practical problems, and what multilateral consultations can do is to do their best to narrow the gap. However, all countries need to understand that the decision adopted by the climate conference is only the "greatest common divisor" of 198 parties with very different interests, which is completely insufficient to objectively reflect the urgency and possibility of energy transition. Our eyes should be on the climate conference, and even more so, we must go beyond the climate conference, wholeheartedly aim at the vision of carbon neutrality, and unswervingly promote technological innovation in the energy system and systemic change in the whole society, so as to win the future.