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Analysis

The Danger of Climate Disinformation from the G20 New Delhi Summit to the UN Climate Conference in Dubai

Brittaney Warren, Lead Researcher on Climate Change, G20 Research Group
December 1, 2023

G20 members met two and a half months before the United Nations Climate Conference – the 28th Conference to the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28 – running from November 30 to December 12 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The G20's September summit in New Delhi is a key indicator of what G20 members will bring to the COP28 negotiating table in Dubai. At the New Delhi Summit, environmental sustainability was captured by the "LiFE" initiative – Lifestyle for Sustainable Development – to promote sustainable production and consumption. Under this broad initiative, the G20 agreed on 47 specific commitments on development, along with 19 commitments on the environment and another 19 on climate change. All of these commitments sit on a sliding scale of ambition, often having ambiguous language that leaves targets and timelines up to the imagination. The commitment on "mainstreaming Lifestyles for Sustainable Development" itself seeks a "significant emission reduction by 2030 for a global net-zero future." With "significant" and "future" open to interpretation, this passage reflected the lack of consensus at New Delhi and mirrors tensions in the ongoing COP28 process.

One of the biggest tensions in global climate negotiations, whether at the G20, COPs or elsewhere, is the intense resistance to phasing out fossil fuels, juxtaposed against a rising enthusiasm for ramping up investments in renewables. The rise in renewables' investments is needed, but brings the risk that bad actors – both countries and industry – seek to use the trend in renewables investments as a diversionary tactic to prolong fossil fuel use. At COP28, civil society and some countries, such as those in the High Ambition Coalition, are trying to ensure that the spotlight remains on immediate divestment in fossil fuels, since meeting the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement will be impossible without a reduction in them.

At the G20's New Delhi Summit, the clearest and most ambitious outcome on climate, and the one aligned with recommendations from the International Energy Agency (IEA), was an agreement to pursue tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. Yet this achievement had a major trade-off: no new action to reduce coal, oil or gas, despite this being another unequivocal IEA recommendation. On the continued use and expansion of fossil fuels, most G20 members agree, in action if not in words. According to a report by the UN, the energy plans of oil-producing countries, including most G20 members, will significantly increase fossil fuel production over the next five years. By 2030, these energy plans will create 460% more coal, 83% more gas and 20% more oil. Canada and the United States are planning major oil expansions, and India, Saudi Arabia and Russia have the largest planned expansions. Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia and Mexico all have plans to expand fossil fuel production. Of the G20 members profiled in the UN study, only the United Kingdom and Germany plan to decrease production.

Given that all these G20 members have pledged to achieve the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement and intend to expand their renewable energy capacity, the conflict with their fossil fuel expansion plans could not be more stark. To get around it, there is much support to include the term "unabated" in any agreement to phase out fossil fuels. At New Delhi, the G20 "recognized the importance of … accelerating efforts towards phasedown of unabated coal power." In this way, the G20 may appear to be making progress, but in reality this language allows for the continuation and expansion of fossil fuels through the use of abatement technology, namely through carbon, capture, storage and utilization (CCSU). The G20 members with the most ambitious oil and gas expansion plans – the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia – are betting big on CCSU. Only the European Union, a G20 member, warns that while there is a place for CCSU in hard-to-abate sectors, it "should not be a pretext to delay climate action now."

These contradictions are a major feature at COP28, made even more stark by the large fossil fuel lobby at the meetings and with Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of ADNAC, at the helm as president. Thus, as new announcements are made at COP28, it will be imperative to ensure the fossil fuel industry and its allied countries do not use COP28 as a bully pulpit to divert the world's attention away from fossil fuel expansion and who is planning it. The core challenge at COP28 is to not allow mere million dollar pledges and shiny solar panels to distract from ADNAC's plan to raise crude output capacity to 5 million barrels per day over the next five years or from G20 members' big oil and gas expansion plans. When the COP28 host uses propaganda to signal its support of meeting the 1.5°C target, the world must remember that the UAE criticizes governments and investors for moving too quickly on climate action and on transitioning away from fossil fuels. The UAE and COP28 president Al Jaber, and the fossil fuel lobby, want to slow climate action at great cost to humanity.

A common tactic of bad actors is to take a truth or fact and add elements of confusion, doubt and distraction as a way to evade responsibility and delay action. This is a longstanding tactic of the fossil fuel industry and its investors, who know they stand to lose exponentially from a decrease in the use of their product. Climate disinformation leading the narrative at COP28 is the biggest threat to climate progress and negotiations. Within the G20 club, the UK and Germany, with plans to decrease fossil fuel production over the next few years, can lead in combating bad actors at COP28 and persuading other G20 members, starting with the democratic and emissions-intensive Canada and US, to follow their lead and finally start strategizing their own fossil fuel reduction plans. France, too, with its leadership moving discussions forward on an international regime to tax the fossil fuel sector and other related industries, can support. Beyond the G20, Barbados and other smaller states most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are valuable allies too.

Note: These are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the G20 Research Group.

Brittaney Warren, MES, is the director of compliance and of climate change for the G20 Research Group and the Global Governance Program based at the University of Toronto. She is co-author of Reconfiguring the Global Governance of Climate Change and has published on accountability measures in summit commitments, and on the G20's governance of climate change and nature-based solutions. She holds a master's degree in environmental studies from York University.

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