How a single word could hold up global talks to save the planet - The Washington Post

Daniel Reifsnyder still remembers the single word that nearly derailed the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Reifsnyder, then a State Department official negotiating the treaty on behalf of the United States, discovered a potentially deal-killing line buried deep in the draft text. It declared that wealthy countries “shall” set targets for cutting their planet-heating emissions.

That line may not seem problematic, but in global talks to save the planet, every word has the potential to sink an agreement to slow Earth’s catastrophic warming.

“‘Shall’ is a legal obligation. ‘Should’ is not,” said Reifsnyder, now an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. “There’s an absolute world of difference between those two verbs. And frankly, ‘shall’ would have made it impossible for the United States to sign on to the Paris agreement as a legal matter.”

Ultimately, the linguistic kerfuffle in Paris was resolved. “Shall” was replaced with “should,” and the 2015 summit was considered a success. But at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, a dispute over fossil fuels threatens to derail progress at the crucial gathering in Dubai.

At issue is whether negotiators from nearly 200 nations should agree to phase “down” or phase “out” the burning of fossil fuels, the primary driver of rising global temperatures. The former implies a gradual decline, while the latter implies the eventual elimination of oil, gas and coal as the world transitions to cleaner forms of energy.

“I know there are strong views about including language on fossil fuels,” COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, who also heads the United Arab Emirates’ state-run oil company, said at the opening of the conference. “I ask you all to work together. Be flexible. Find common ground.”

But veteran climate diplomats say common ground may be tough to find.

“The phasedown versus phaseout is a bit of a conundrum,” said Nate Hultman, a former senior State Department official who now directs the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.

“Words matter at COPs because they convey real commitment,” he added. “And if we’re trying with nearly 200 countries to get rapid action, that is frankly challenging.”

This year’s delicate dance

Observers of the talks have long expected fossil fuel-dependent Saudi Arabia and Russia to try to block the “phaseout” language. But China’s climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, surprised some observers by declaring in September that it is “not realistic” to eliminate fossil fuels.

“With China, traditionally they always want language that signals their commitment but doesn’t make them beholden to anybody else,” said Rachel Kyte, a visiting professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.

Kyte, a longtime attendee of the global climate talks, compared the search for the right language to a dance with multiple partners.

“Everybody is able to dance, and you find the language that nobody really likes, but everybody is sufficiently comfortable,” she said. “And it’s a dance around accountability. What are you on the hook for?”

Representing the United States at this year’s talks are John F. Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, and Sue Biniaz, his deputy. Biniaz has a reputation as a wordsmith; she carries crossword puzzles in her purse and once wrote an academic paper on commas and other punctation in climate treaties. Kerry, for his part, told reporters on the eve of COP28 that he supported “language requiring the phaseout of unabated fossil fuels.”

In climate circles, the word “unabated” has sparked another big squabble.

The word refers to carbon emissions that are not captured and stored deep underground. At the climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, negotiators agreed to accelerate “efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.”

However, many environmentalists view carbon-capture technology as a false climate solution, saying it can prolong the life of fossil fuel infrastructure for decades to come. They note that the International Energy Agency has said humanity cannot build any new oil, gas or coal infrastructure if it hopes to meet the goal of the Paris agreement: preventing dangerous global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

“Scientific demands for a phaseout of fossil fuels have been watered down into more mealy-mouthed language” about abatement, said Collin Rees, U.S. program manager at the climate advocacy group Oil Change International.

A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, defended the word “unabated,” saying that carbon-capture technology could play an important role in reducing emissions from energy-hungry processes such as steel and cement production.

“It may be that it doesn’t pan out as a technology,” the official said. “But I don’t think we’re at the stage that we would rule it out through these negotiations.”

A second State Department official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, said the difference between a fossil fuel “phaseout” and a fossil fuel “phasedown” is less important than the time frame for the transition.

“You could say ‘phaseout by 2100,’ and that would be a lot weaker than ‘phasedown by 2050,’” this person said, adding: “People are acting as if those are the only two words in the English language that could possibly address the issue of fossil fuels. But the English language is rich enough that I’m sure if there is controversy about one or the other of those words, we could find a third one.”

The consequences of semantics

The debate over whether to phase “out” or phase “down” fossil fuels is not merely an academic exercise conducted by diplomats in Dubai. It has life-or-death consequences for millions of people around the globe who are exposed to harmful air pollution from the burning of oil, gas and coal.

According to a study published last week in the British Medical Journal, air pollution from fossil fuel combustion is responsible for an estimated 5.13 million excess deaths per year — much higher than previous estimates. Most of these premature deaths stemmed from cardiometabolic conditions such as heart disease.

“A phaseout of fossil fuels would have tremendous positive health outcomes,” said Jos Lelieveld, an author of the study and director of the atmospheric chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. “That is something we tried to communicate to people who are now negotiating at COP28.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the former environment minister of Peru who served as president of the 2014 climate talks in Lima, said language about a fossil fuel phaseout could also reverberate across global markets, potentially slowing investments in polluting projects.

“It’s so important to have clear language that can send a clear signal to the economic sector,” said Pulgar-Vidal, who is now the global leader of climate and energy with WWF.

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, sought to remind delegates of the real-world consequences of their words at the summit’s outset.

“Remember this: Behind every line you work on, every word or comma you wrestle with here at COP, there is a human being, a family, a community, that depends on you,” he said.

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2023-12-04 11:04:04Z
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