Young people were one of the most important groups attending the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—or Cop28 for short. Here are some of their honest views on the discussions and decisions they witnessed
Climate change will affect the world’s youth the most. Fortunately, youth participation in key global summits like the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) climate summits has been increasing.
Regarded as one of the most prominent summits on climate change, this year’s summit, Cop28, which concluded last Tuesday after nearly two weeks of discussions and activities, welcomed delegates from about 200 countries to Dubai.
Controversial since the beginning, the summit had named an oil mogul—Sultan al-Jaber, who also runs a renewable energy company—as the conference president.
Read more: COP27: Freedom Cups’ Vanessa Paranjothy on the Insights and Ironies
With various agendas, delegates partook in discussions about climate investing, addressing questions such as how can companies and investors compromise or balance risk and opportunity in finance? Can carbon credits be used as a decarbonisation tool? What role does data have in analysing climate progress and how can one move forward with this data in hand?
The takeaways were plenty, but how many of them will turn into actual action? We ask three Gen.T honourees to share their views of this year’s Cop28.
Dr Renard Siew
“Cop28 saw incremental progress but needed more transformative action to address the climate crisis. A landmark agreement was reached to establish a Loss and Damage Fund to help vulnerable countries recover from climate disasters, but commitments fell far short, and details on deployment and oversight still need to be clarified.
“New roadmaps were launched across agriculture, oil and gas sectors but needed more substantive near-term targets or policy plans.
Read more: Environmental activist Renard Siew to launch book on sustainability in early February
“More ambitious renewable energy and efficiency goals were set. However, a significant disappointment was the failure to reach a consensus on Article 6 carbon market rules, which would have supported carbon credit efforts underway in Malaysia and ASEAN.
“Other highlights included establishing health and climate change linkages in the official Cop Declaration. Still, the summit underscored a continual lack of urgency and accountability from high-emitting nations to set the world on a below 1.5C pathway essential to avoid climate catastrophe.”
