How US-China renewables agreement could shape COP28 talks
In This Article:
Business and world leaders are gathering for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. The conference aims to create "specific solutions that must be scaled to limit warming to 1.5 degrees," according to COP28.
David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights Founder, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the COP28 conference and how a recent pledge from the United State and China to cooperate on climate change could provide momentum to upcoming talks.
Callaway explains why world leaders are slow make significant progress on climate issues: "The pressure continues to rise on these global leaders and then they have alternative pressures such as facing reelections and the higher costs of climate change. So they're not on the same schedule. They need to be essentially shocked into that and I think what we saw this year in climate disasters, something like $89 billion in climate disasters over the last few years, is going to start to put that pressure on."
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: What is-- I guess, in order for COP to be successful, what would that entail from your--
DAVID CALLAWAY: So what we saw in 2015 was the Paris Accord, right? It was-- COP was in Paris. All the countries of the world signed on to an agreement to keep global prices from-- global temperatures from rising too far, right? That was the last time they agreed on anything.
And every year we all go to COP, something like 70,000 people go in this year to Dubai. And everyone's looking for a global agreement and every year it collapses or it's kind of warm toast or something like that. This at least sets the stage that we might see something interesting, either in the agreement to phase down oil, which is good for renewable energy investors or the payment of loss and damages to poorer countries, which is another thing.
You know, I for one am kind of skeptical that you can get hundreds governments in a room to agree on anything. But if you have the two biggest polluters in the world, US and China, agreeing on something, there's room for some optimism.
BRAD SMITH: I mean, when we've spoken with climatologists and even some of the climate economists out there, what they've continued to remind us is that we're coming off of-- or we're still in the midst of but perhaps going to be rounding out one of the hottest years on record during 2023. How does that change the dialogue, the discourse from some of the global world leaders?