COP 28 launches in Dubai as European leaders recommit to climate change goals

Originally published at Europe in Review on December, 2023

The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1994 United Nations Convention on Climate Change started in Dubai on November 30 as European leaders recommitted themselves to climate change goals prior to the summit. [UN] [COP28] The first COP conference took place in Berlin in 1995.

EU Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, European Investment Bank President Werner Hoyer, and International Energy Agency (IEA) President Fatih Birol released a joint statement on November 24 calling on European representatives to take a leading role in new clean energy investment and regulatory initiatives at COP28. [ECB]

The European Climate Law passed in 2021 mandates and provides a regulatory framework for achieving net zero emissions for the European economy by 2050 across all economic sectors from transportation to energy production. [EU]

The framework includes a goal of 30 million net zero emission vehicles by 2030, an over tenfold increase over a decade from the 1.9 million electric vehicles on European roads in 2021. By 2035 all cars sold in the EU are to be net zero emission vehicles, either electric or e-fuels, which are drop-in fuels that can substitute for gasoline in conventional engines and are based upon hydrogen. [EC] [Eurostat]

However, OPEC oil demand predictions are based upon the realisation that there is no equivalent mandate in other economies outside the approximately 450 million population of the EU to mandate fossil fuel powered vehicle elimination. [EC]

Demand for the internal combustion engine may in fact continue to grow globally as the world population continues to increase at the rate of approximately 367,000 births compared to 190,000 global deaths per day according to UN statistics, leading to an additional 25% world population increase from nearly eight billion in 2023 to ten billion by 2085. [UN] [Our World in Data] [NYT]

OPEC projects that global oil demand will continue to grow despite European and Western energy policy while the EU predicts that Western policy, projected through international financial institutions and laws, will lead to a significant reduction in the number of fossil fuel powered vehicles worldwide over time and commensurate global oil demand.

(rw/gc)