In a first, COP28 targets the root cause of climate change

As activists andcopuncopun diplomats first assembled in Dubai for 28, the ’s climate summit, a fortnight ago, the chances of significant progress seemed slim. War had returned to the Middle East and the geopolitical order was fragmenting. The choice of the summit’s host country—the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s leading petrostates—and its chairman, , the head of its national oil company, threatened to turn the event into a giant exercise in greenwashing.Instead, 28 defied the pessimists. For the first time the world has to move away from the coal, oil and natural gas that are the principal causes of global warming. The 198 parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed on a text that called for a transition away from fossil fuels “in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.