COP28 UAE’s Presidency floats reduction of fossil fuels by 2050
The United Arab Emirates, presiding over this year’s COP28 climate talks, called on countries to reduce their consumption and production of fossil fuels in order to achieve close-to net-zero by the middle of the century, setting the stage for a showdown between developed countries and petrostates with less than 24 hours until the summit is due to end.
The draft plan is meant to bring projections of global temperature increases to below 1.5C, and calls on the reduction of fossil fuels to be “just” and “orderly.” The text also says that coal should be “rapidly” phased down, with limitations on new power generation. The proclamation is set to be the defining issue of the COP28 summit being held in Dubai, with some oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, fiercely resisting any move to chart an end to the use of polluting energy sources.
If the language stays, it would mark the first time in nearly three decades that a call to reduce fossil fuels made it into the final deal at a United Nations climate summit.
Talks are scheduled to conclude Tuesday, bringing to a close a two-week summit that’s focused on whether countries would be willing to shift away from the oil, gas and coal that have powered the global economy for more than a century. Nations will now provide the UAE with their thoughts on the latest text, which also commits countries to tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency this decade.
Sultan Al Jaber, the COP28 president who’s been accused of conflicts of interest because he’s also head of Abu Dhai National Oil Co., made clear on Sunday that he’s working on getting groundbreaking language of fossil fuels into the final text.
“We need to find consensus and common ground on fossil fuels,” Al Jaber said.
The EU, US and small island states have been among those pushing for a phase out of fossil fuels, albeit with various differences over issues such as the role carbon capture and storage should play. Countries including Brazil want to see developed countries first start the shift away from fossil fuels, while members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, have opposed any mention of a phase down or phase out.
The UAE achieved a landmark deal on the first day to get a fund up and running to help developing countries pay for the losses and damages caused by increasingly extreme weather. The country and developed nations have since committed over half a billion dollars to the fund, with a further $80 billion of financial pledges being made during the summit.
