The greenhouse gas breakthrough that should give us hope

Three decades on from the first UN Cop summit the world is finally about to hit peak emissions, writes Nick Ferris from the latest summit in Dubai. It is a major milestone but the job of decarbonising our lives is nowhere near complete

A failure to account for demand in developing countries is often a major oversight in models looking at peak emissions (AP)

Cop28 has been mired in controversy (yes, again) over comments by its host, Sultan al-Jaber, about whether it’s necessary to phase out fossil fuels to limit global warming.

It emerged at the end of last week that he had made comments that there is “no science” behind calls to phase out fossil fuel consumption. But then Jaber, who is also head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, clarified his comments and said that dramatically reducing fossil fuel use was “inevitable” if the world is to keep within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels.

How quickly emissions can be cut – and how – is the key question that the UN climate summit is trying to answer.