Pádraig Hoare: Cop28 spins bare minimum into landmark deal

Cop28 was a capitulation to special interests where the world's most vulnerable people will pay the heaviest price for the richest folks' folly, writes Pádraig Hoare

UN climate chief Simon Stiell embraces Cop28 president sultan Ahmed al-Jaber as he returns to a plenary session at the climate summit on Wednesday. While it is true that even the mention of reducing fossil fuels was a first for a Cop agreement, it is hardly groundbreaking. Picture: Kamran Jebreili/AP.

Cop28 has managed, somehow, to spin the bare minimum in the fight against climate change into a landmark agreement of historic proportions.

The cheers that went up as the oil and gas baron, sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, brought the UN’s climate change summit to a close in Dubai were profoundly depressing.