Step Right Up: This Climate Summit Isn’t Just Diplomats and Policy Talk

There are two climate summits taking place in Dubai. One is the gathering of bleary-eyed, sharp-tongued diplomats parsing over every word and comma in the international declaration that is expected in the coming days.

The bigger event is happening outside the negotiating rooms. It’s part trade fair, part protest stage, part debate forum. It’s where people come from all over the world, from all kinds of sectors to show off their gadgets, make deals, spar over big ideas and of course, lobby the diplomats.

This year, this big event is expected to be nearly twice as big as the last one, which itself set a record. According to the United Nations, which is overseeing the summit, known as COP28, a record 100,000 people registered; nearly 70,000 have shown up. Roaming through the venue are doctors and pesticide makers, venture capitalists and battery entrepreneurs, mining executives, real estate developers, permafrost scientists, policy wonks dreaming up new sources of climate finance, and at least 1,200 lobbyists for the oil and gas industry.

“The global economy is here, in a kind of microcosm,” said Rachel Kyte, a veteran climate diplomat and chairwoman of a group trying to make carbon markets more transparent.

Not surprisingly, there are competing visions for how to retool the global economy for a hotter future.

The livestock industry organized a panel on what it called “sustainable beef,” while just on the other side of a removable wall, an entrepreneur opined on precision fermentation, which is a way to make a meat substitute. Bhutan sought financing for its plan to remake its capital, Thimphu, more sustainably. An Indian solar entrepreneur created an immersive installation describing what happens when electricity comes to rural hospitals.