Samoa and other Pacific nations have the right to be angry at the outcomes of the COP28 meeting in Dubai which ended last week. Samoa and the Pacific had gone into an all-important meeting hoping that this would be the conference that would start the phase-out of fossil fuel.

COP28 shows that greed for wealth and power has once again overshadowed an outcome that would have effectively saved this planet. Some say COP28 was the beginning of the end. It is very simple; fossil fuel needs to be phased out so that global warming can be kept below 1.5C. If it is not kept at that sea levels will continue to rise, and climate change will continue resulting in stronger storm systems.

The biggest winners from the COP-28 are fossil fuel-producing nations who know their source of wealth is protected. There is a commitment for more renewable energy projects by 2050 but no timeframe has been set.

During the COP27 summit in 2022, leaders of the group of islands urgently pointed to climate change as “the single greatest existential threat facing the Blue Pacific” and emphasized the immediate need to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius “through rapid, deep and sustained” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is the aspirational global temperature limit set in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. Its importance is widely recognised because so-called tipping points become more likely beyond this level.

At this year’s summit, Big Oil sought to shift the focus to reducing emissions through improved technology rather than phasing out fossil fuels — the burning of coal, oil, and gas — which account for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Many countries and activists had pushed for the COP28 outcome to show that “we are truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era,” and a draft text Tuesday that omitted the demand for phasing out the fuels sparked anger.

“Where it stands, the science tells us that 1.5 degrees is our survival line. And for us to make it to 1.5, we need a phase-out of fossil fuels,” Brianna Fruean, a Samoan climate activist with the Pacific Climate Warriors said.

“We weren’t able to see those words ‘phase out,’ we weren’t able to see the timeline or even mechanism in which countries are responsible to phase out. The fossil fuel industry still expands to this day, they’re making billions. And that’s not enough for us.”

“A good indication of how we’ve been listened to in this process is that the final deal was gavelled while some of the small island states were still trying to get in the room, because we received the text so late, and we were trying to coordinate and see where all of these islands stand on the text,” Fruean added. “So from their coordination room into the plenary, some of them weren’t even able to make it, they were walking in as there was a standing ovation.”

Those technologies have been promoted by many major companies and advocacy groups, as well as oil and gas producers, as solutions for reducing emissions. Their safety and efficacy remain a matter of heated debate in the energy and climate world.

In a social media post immediately following the final deal’s announcement, the UAE summit presidency praised it as a “global goal to triple renewables and double energy efficiency” and said that “more oil and gas companies stepping up for the first time on methane and emissions. And we have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement.”

Yes, the Pacific ‘may’ get funding for renewable energy projects but the world will continue to use fossil fuels, warm the earth, and as many scientists have predicted continue to lead us to doom. It is now for Samoa’s leaders to take urgent steps and stop waiting on loss and damage to turn to renewable energy.

For starters, the Government of Samoa can spend a little extra and ensure that the Electric Power Corporation can manage solar farms on their own. Villages can start setting up their solar farms. Every Samoan can plant more trees every year.