DUBAI- A draft of a potential climate deal at the COP28 summit on Monday suggested a range of measures countries could take to slash greenhouse gas emissions, but omitted the “phase out” of fossil fuels many nations have demanded – drawing criticism from the US EU and climate-vulnerable countries.
The draft has set the stage for contentious last-minute negotiations in the two-week summit in Dubai, which has laid bare deep international divisions over whether oil, gas and coal should have a place in a climate-friendly future.
A coalition of more than 100 countries have been pushing for an agreement would for the first time promise an eventual end to the oil age – but are up against opposition from members of the oil producer group OPEC.
COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber – who has previously used the conference to call for a paradigm shift – urged the nearly 200 countries at the talks to redouble their efforts to finalize a deal ahead of the scheduled close of the conference on Tuesday, saying they “still have a lot to do”.
“You know what remains to be agreed. And you know that I want you to deliver the highest ambition on all items including on fossil fuel language,” he said.
The new draft of a COP28 agreement, published by the United Arab Emirates’ presidency of the summit, proposed various options but did not refer to a “phase out” of fossil fuels.
Instead, it listed eight options that countries could use to cut emissions, including: “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050”.
Other actions listed included tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, “rapidly phasing down unabated coal” and scaling up technologies including those to capture CO2 emissions to keep them from the atmosphere.
Alden Meyer, a senior associate at environmental think tank E3G, criticized the new deal as “basically an a la carte menu that allows countries to individually choose what they want to do.”
Despite the fact emissions from burning fossil fuels are by far the main driver of climate change, 30 years’ worth of international climate negotiations have never resulted in a global agreement to cut their use.
The text triggered a protest from dozens of delegates who stood in near silence, holding hands and lining the long route into a room where negotiators gathered, forcing them to run an eerie gauntlet before getting back to work.
“Please give us a good text,” one delegate pleaded as negotiators filed in. – Reuters
