Foreign Relations & International Law

The Lawfare Podcast: Fossil Fuel Flops at COP28

Hyemin Han, Erin Sikorsky, Jen Patja
Friday, December 15, 2023, 8:00 AM
What happened at the UN Climate Conference this year?

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According to the resolution signed at the end of the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP28 for short, fossil fuels have finally been sentenced to a slow and painful death. This year’s global climate summit, held in the United Arab Emirates, ended with an overtime session that resulted with the nations agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time in COP history. But what does this really mean, and is the language as strong as it could have been? Lawfare Associate Editor Hyemin Han talked to Director of the Center for Climate and Security and Lawfare Contributing Editor Erin Sikorsky about the final deal language, what else happened at COP28, and the geopolitical implications of the clean energy transition. 


Hyemin Han is an associate editor of Lawfare and is based in Washington, D.C. Previously, she worked in eviction defense and has interned on Capitol Hill and with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. She holds a BA in government from Dartmouth College, where she was editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth independent daily.
Erin Sikorsky is the director of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan research institute based in Washington, D.C. She previously led climate and environment analysis across the U.S. intelligence community, serving as deputy director of the Strategic Futures Group on the National Intelligence Council.
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.

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