The inaugural Health Day at COP28, the upcoming UN climate summit in Dubai, will launch the one-year progress report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, a key outcome of last year’s summit in Egypt.

The agenda, which was agreed at COP27, includes a number of commitments to increase finance and investment in climate change adaptation, protect people from the health threats posed by urban heat, improve health surveillance systems, and invest in resilient health systems.

It also lays out a total of 30 global adaptation outcome targets by 2030, which are “urgently needed to increase the resilience of 4 billion people to accelerate transformation across five impact systems: food and agriculture, water and nature, coastal and oceans, human settlements, and infrastructure, and including enabling solutions for planning and finance.”

Mariam Allam, co-chair of the UNFCCC Adaptation Committee and lead negotiator for the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, said the stocktake would be an important moment to assess progress on increasing adaptation and resilience for public health and health systems.

“This agenda is global in nature, but immediately prioritizes the 4 billion vulnerable people by 2030,” she said. “This is really what we know from the best available science from the IPCC is that there are roughly 3.6 billion people who live in formability hot spots because of the escalating impacts and risks associated with climate change.”

“It’s an important moment because we will be including a narrative on where we stand on increasing adaptation and resilience for public health, but also the resilience of the health system itself,” Allam added.

COP28 Health Day focus on adaptation raises concerns

The preliminary agenda for Health Day at COP28 places a heavy emphasis on adaptation to the health impacts of climate change, rather than mitigation of carbon emissions. 

While many global health experts have welcomed the inclusion of a health day in the COP28 summit, some have criticized the focus on adaptation, arguing that it ignores the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which is the root cause of the problem.

Allam, the UNFCCC Adaptation Committee co-chair, defended the focus on adaptation, arguing that adaptation measures are essential to protecting people from the effects of climate change that are already threatening the health of millions around the world. 

“Mitigation is the starting point of the solution, but at the same time, impacts are happening [now],” said Allam. “Adaptation action has been seen as a distraction from the primary purpose [since] decades ago, but now we’re seeing the impacts happen faster than we would have anticipated at only 1.1C degrees.”

 “I think the starting point being mitigation is an important exercise,” she added. “That needs to be done, but it’s not enough.”

Critics also argue that the focus on adaptation at COP28 is a way for oil-producing countries like the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the talks, to avoid addressing the need to cut emissions. They also worry that the UAE’s status as a member of the oil cartel OPEC has already clouded the agenda in favour of adaptation measures, rather than mitigation.

“There’s absolutely no way we can adapt our way out of this crisis,” said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of the World Health Organization’s Climate Change and Health Unit. “There are limits to adaptation… in some places we are already passing the limits of adaptation.”

“We do need to cut carbon emissions, and if we do that, we can in fact get great health benefits,” said Campbell-Lendrum, citing examples like reduced deaths from cleaner air.

Oil Giants Seek to Rebrand as Climate Leaders Ahead of COP28

The world’s biggest oil producers, including the United Arab Emirates, are seeking to rebrand themselves as champions of the fight against climate change as the COP28 summit approaches.

This week, the UAE hosted the International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), which brings together the most powerful players in the oil and gas industry every year. At the conference, Sultan al-Jaber, the president of COP28 and chief of the Emirati’s state oil giant ENOC, told the audience that the oil industry is central to the solution to climate change.

“This is your opportunity to show the world that, in fact, you are central to the solution,” Jaber said.

The conference hosted just two months ahead of the critical climate summit in the same city, chose the slogan: “Decarbonize. Faster. Together.”

But demand for fossil fuels is still going up, and OPEC is increasing production – and profits – to match. Last week, OPEC agreed to raise its medium- and long-term outlook for oil demand, according to Reuters. OPEC is expected to make an official announcement reflecting the revised demand estimates on Monday.

COP27, which took place in Egypt last year, saw over 600 fossil fuel lobbyists attend the summit. Only one country – the UAE – had a larger delegation than the fossil fuel lobby.

Jaber told the petroleum conference that the science of the IPCC – whose recent report concluded that the world must cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030 to hit the 1.5C warming target – must be respected.

“That is our north star. It is our destination,” he said. “It is simply respecting the science.” 

Can the UAE lead the climate fight?

NEW: For months, Carbon Brief has been investigating #CarbonOffsets

Today, we publish a special series interrogating every aspect of this often murky practice

To start, here’s an in-depth Q&A on whether carbon offsets can help to tackle climate changehttps://t.co/xmHQg599LW pic.twitter.com/exMabNTSLt

— Carbon Brief (@CarbonBrief) September 25, 2023

A Dubai-based company led by a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family has invested $1.5 billion in carbon offset projects in Zimbabwe, a deal that could influence the climate agenda as the UAE considers its role as an oil producer.

The deal, announced last week, is one of the largest carbon offset deals ever signed. It involves almost a fifth of Zimbabwe’s total landmass and will focus on rainforest protection and rehabilitation.

Carbon offset schemes like this one are controversial, with some critics arguing that they allow polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases without actually reducing their emissions. Others have referred to the practice as “carbon colonialism”.

Voluntary carbon offsets, such as those in the deal between Zimbabwe and the UAE-based company, have achieved “zero mitigation”, Robert Mendelhson, a professor of forest policy and economics at Yale told Carbon Brief last week. 

“They have not changed behaviour and so they have not led to any reduction of carbon in the atmosphere,” he said. 

The focus on carbon credits and offsets during the first Africa Climate Summit in September was also roundly criticized. Over 500 civil society groups signed an open letter to Kenyan President William Ruto, who presided over the summit, accusing him of allowing “the position and interest of the West, namely, carbon markets, carbon sequestration, and ‘climate positive’ approaches” to dominate the proceedings. 

“These concepts and false solutions are … being marketed as African priorities,” the letter said.