COP28 negotiators reached a breakthrough climate agreement that calls for slowly weaning the world off fossil fuels, the first time such language has been adopted, but no "phase out" as more than 100 countries sought.
Representatives of almost 200 nations agreed on Wednesday to begin collectively “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science."
COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, head of the United Arab Emirates' state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said a day after the talks went into overtime that nations worked hard to secure "a better future for our people and our planet" by adopting a plan based in science.
Regardless of the details of the summit's final text, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said a fossil fuel phase out is inevitable.
"For the first time, the outcome recognizes the need to transition away from fossil fuels – after many years in which the discussion of this issue was blocked. Science tells us that limiting global heating to 1.5° will be impossible without the phase out of all fossil fuels on a timeframe consistent with this limit," said Guterres.
"To those who opposed a clear reference to a phase out of fossil fuels in the COP28 text, I want to say that a fossil fuel phase out is inevitable whether they like it or not," he said. "Let’s hope it doesn’t come too late."
European Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra said COP28 "will mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels. The text we have in front of us sets in motion an irreversible, and accelerated transition away from fossil fuels."
Germany's top climate diplomat, Jennifer Morgan, called it a "historic decision that is strongly guided by the 1.5° Celsius limit" of the 2015 Paris Agreement, sending "an unmistakable signal" the future is renewable energy, not fossil fuels.
"In one year, working in collaboration with the most vulnerable countries, we together created a loss and damage fund and capitalized it so it can get up and running and support those suffering from climate impacts," said Morgan, Germany's state secretary and special envoy for international climate action.
"Today, we showed that multilateralism delivers. Tomorrow, we drive these decisions forward," she said. "We must be fast. We must be deliberate, with ambition and solidarity for climate justice."
Negotiators had remained far apart on key issues at the U.N. climate summit in Dubai, where small island nations lashed out at having their voices ignored.
But a new text of the so-called global stocktake emerged as the talks extended to try to break an impasse over how quickly the world might phase out or lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.
The global stocktake indicates how far off-track the world is from the 1.5° warming limit under the 2015 Paris Agreement, and what it will take to get back on track. Consensus was required for the U.A.E.-hosted COP28 summit to take a final decision.
Island nations refuse to sign their 'death certificate'
The words "fossil fuel" appears in just one other instance in the 21-page text, with a call for "phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible."
That represented a slightly tougher stance from an earlier draft text which said the world should start "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner" to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“We have language on fossil fuel in our final agreement for the first time ever,” al-Jaber said. It also includes a commitment to triple the use of renewable energy and double energy efficiency.
On the first day of the summit, leaders announced the creation of the loss and damage climate compensation fund. Rich nations most responsible for the climate crisis have pledged to put almost US$800 million in it, far less than the estimated US$400 billion a year that developing countries need.
The Alliance of Small Island States, representing 39 nations vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate impacts, said the new text showed improvement – but amounted to only "incremental" improvement over business as usual.
Anne Rasmussen, AOSIS' lead negotiator, complained that al-Jaber, the COP28 president, gavelled the final decision on the text while representatives of her alliance were not in the room.
"The draft text you have presented to us contains many good elements. We see strong references to the science," Rasmussen said. "The question we have considered as AOSIS is whether they are enough."
"We have come to the conclusion that the course correction that is needed has not yet been secured," she concluded. "We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step-change in our actions and support."
The final text did not include any commitment or invitation for nations to reach peak emissions by 2025, she said, while an exclusive focus on energy systems was "disappointing" nations are being asked to endorse technologies that could undermine their climate efforts.
The earlier draft drew the ire of AOSIS' members and some European nations because it omitted language insisting on the phase out of fossil fuel burning that had appeared in earlier versions.
"We are greatly concerned that this lack of a platform to air our views has resulted in weak language that will obliterate our chances of maintaining the 1.5° C. warming limit," Samoa's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, speaking as AOSIS' chair, told reporters.
"We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels," he said, flanked by ministers from the Dominican Republic, Marshall Islands, Niue Islands and Palau. "Our small island developing states are on the frontlines of this climate crisis, but if you continue prioritizing profit over people, you are putting your own future on the line."
The OPEC influence
European leaders and the head of the United Nations had demanded stronger language on fossil fuels. Guterres had returned to Dubai on Monday to keep up the pressure, saying still large gaps remain to be bridged. "We can’t keep kicking the can down the road. We are out of road – and almost out of time," said Guterres.
More than 800 business, political, academic and philanthropic leaders signed an open letter to the COP28 president calling for "the strongest possible outcome" from the talks including an "orderly phase out of all fossil fuels in a just and equitable way."
The language to avoid calling for a gradual end to fossil fuel use resulted from intense talks among negotiators from nearly 200 nations, including the U.A.E., the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, and other OPEC members. At least 100 nations called for the phase out of fossil fuels.
Earlier in the week, however, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais sent a letter urging the oil cartel's 13 members and 10 Russian-led allies to "proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions." Previous rounds of climate talks also have focused on lowering emissions, not fossil fuel use.
'On the verge of complete failure'
A year ago, six small island nations asked for an advisory opinion that could force most of the U.N.'s 193 member nations to adopt tougher protections for marine environments against climate impacts from human-caused carbon pollution.
The six members of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, or COSIS – Antigua and Barbuda, Niue, Palau, Saint Lucia, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – sent the request to a U.N. tribunal in Hamburg, Germany.
They want the tribunal to clearly establish nation's legal obligations to protect the marine environment from climate impacts such as ocean warming, acidification and sea level rise. Public hearings in the case opened in September.
An analysis of COP28 by the Paris-based International Energy Agency showed many countries have made pledges in three of five key areas – renewable power, energy efficiency and methane emissions, but not two of the most important: climate financing for developing nations and an "orderly decline" in fossil fuel use.
"While the pledges are positive steps forward in tackling the energy sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, they would not be nearly enough to move the world onto a path to reaching international climate targets, in particular the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°," IEA said in an analysis released on Sunday.
It said the amount of carbon emissions that would be cut by 2030 "represents only around 30% of the emissions gap that needs to be bridged" to stick to the 1.5° preferred limit in the Paris treaty, which set 2° as an upper limit.
Before the last-minute deal was reached, Al Gore, the climate advocate and former U.S. vice president, had warned that COP28 was on the verge of complete failure.
"The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word," he said. "To prevent COP28 from being the most embarrassing and dismal failure in 28 years of international climate negotiations, the final text must include clear language on phasing out fossil fuels. Anything else is a massive step backwards."
This story has been updated with additional details.
