So the size of it is that it has only taken delegates 28 years to actually mention the source and scale of the problem.  Well whoop-y-doop. At that rate, by 2051 maybe they will agree a (non-binding) pledge to phase out fossil fuels… @billmckibben famously says that winning slowly on climate is the same as losing. Well, this sure is the quintessence of SLOWLY! What that is concrete, that actually means something, has come out of this CoP? Nothing. Only a few more unbelievable, unenforceable voluntary pledges. (There was that early success on loss and damage - but even that achievement melts almost into thin air when one actually scrutinises it. The fund is tiny, and not parameterised in any of the ways that the affected countries wanted.) Should I be kinder to this agreement? After all, there is, famously, some reasonably decent novel language in the agreement they managed to reach at CoP28, language that speaks of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. Good. But look closer: “in energy systems”. Why did they add that phrase? Why not just say “transitioning away from fossil fuel”, full stop? What do they mean by the (in this context) slightly odd, rarely used phrase, “energy systems”? The most plausible interpretation - the one that will certainly be in the minds of the likes of Sultan Jaber - is that they mean power (I.e. power-stations) and heat (as in for instance combined heat-and-power plants, or in home-heating). I.e. “Energy systems” mean the generation (and transmission) of electricity (and of heating). So let’s be clear: CoP28 did NOT even actually ‘call on’ countries to transition away from fossil fuels. They only called on countries to transition away from fossil fuels in the generation of electricity (and of heat for heating purposes). CoP28 simply did not ‘call on’ countries to transition away from fossil fuels in their use in transportation, or in heavy industry (eg chemicals or steel production), or in the food system. Only in the production and transmission of ‘energy’: I.e. basically electricity (plus heating). This is the real significance of the failure to call for the phasing out of fossil fuels, at CoP28. Let us put the matter bluntly and clearly. This just is not the breakthrough that some are inadvisedly and rather desperately trying to convince themselves (and the less will-informed) that it is. It is a loophole- ridden, merely rhetorical advance, without teeth. CoP in anything like its present form has, inevitably, categorically failed us and is never going to effectively deal with this more-than-emergency.  The most powerful, transformative thing that CoP delegates could do as they leave Dubai and trail home is to admit - to proclaim - exactly this. They need to do so, to counter the impression that the CoP PR machine is giving: that this is summit has somehow been a success that has put the world on the path to salvation. On the contrary. This is yet another power-less sticking plaster. A mere rhetorical flourish. The CoP system is moribund. It needs to end. What is actually needed is smaller, nimbler, bolder coalitions of the willing, collaborations of countries (and businesses, and other entities) willing to go much further toward what actually needs to be done, if we are to have a future.