by DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A new compromise early Wednesday at the United Nations’ COP28 climate talks called for the world to finally wean itself off planet-warming fossil fuels in a global rally stronger than as suggested days before but with life-threatening loopholes. critics.
The new proposal does not specifically use language calling for a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, which more than 100 nations have pleaded for. , in an orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade.” The move would bring the world to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 and follow the dictates of climate science. It brings a world with ever-growing carbon pollution to the threshold by 2025. agreement, but it gives wiggle room for individual nations like China to peak later.
Intense sessions with all kinds of delegates went into the wee hours of Wednesday morning after the opening document of the conference presidency angered many countries by avoiding decisive calls for action to curb warming. Then, the United Arab Emirates-led presidency presented a key new document to delegates from nearly 200 nations – known as the global stocktake – just after sunrise.
This is the third version presented in two weeks and the word “oil” does not appear anywhere in the 21 page document, but “fossil fuels” does appear twice.
“We needed a global signal to address fossil fuels. This is the first time in 28 years that countries have been forced to deal with fossil fuels,” Jean Su, director of energy justice for the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Associated Press. “So that’s a general win. But the actual details in this are very lacking.”
“The problem with the text is that it still includes cavernous loopholes that allow the United States and other fossil fuel-producing countries to continue their fossil fuel expansion,” said Su. “There is a pretty fatal flaw in the text, allowing transitional fuels to continue” which is code for natural gas which also emits carbon pollution.
“There are many loopholes in the text and it offers some gifts to the greenwashers, with references to carbon capture and storage, so-called transition fuels, nuclear power and carbon markets,” said Teresa Anderson, climate chief executive global Action Aid. a rocky road to a fossil-free future.”
But Director of the World Resources Institute’s Global Climate Program Melanie Robinson praised the plan, saying, “this would move the needle significantly in the fight against climate change and overcome enormous pressure from oil and gas interests.”
The global inventory aims to help nations align their national climate plans with the 2015 Paris agreement that calls for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The world is on its way to breaking the record for the hottest yearendangering human health and making extreme weather more expensive and deadly.
Nations were given a few hours to see what COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber and his team produced. They will then meet in a session which may lead to the adoption of the text or send negotiators back for further work.
Some of the language in previous versions of the draft that had the most affected nations calling for dramatic action to address climate change was changed. Actions previously presented as optional “could” be changed to “calls on parties to”.
Other documents presented before sunrise on Wednesday addressed, in part, the sticky issues of money to help poorer nations adapt to global warming and emit less carbon, as well as how countries should adapt to warming climate. Many financial issues are set to be hammered out over the next two years at upcoming climate conferences in Azerbaijan and Brazil. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that developing countries need $194-366 billion a year to help adapt to a hotter and wilder world.
“Overall, I think this is a stronger text than the previous versions we’ve seen,” said United Nations Foundation senior adaptation adviser Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio. “But it is not too low in terms of using the funding needed to achieve those goals.”
“If we can’t agree on a strong signal for adaptation, where do we go from here?” said Emilie Beauchamp of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, adding that the text on adaptation did not meet its goal. “Instead, adaptation has been relegated to the broom closet of these negotiations.”
The annual conference ended on Tuesday after almost two weeks of work and talk. Instead, the negotiators were in closed meetings as they reworked the cornerstone document that had turned up a day earlier.
Oil, gas and coal are the main causes of warming and activists, experts and many nations have argued that there is an urgent need to strongly restrict fossil fuels to limit warming.
The most important thing for the summit is to find language that will not block a deal because there must be a final agreement by consensus. But consensus does not require unanimity, and past climate summits have pushed through agreement over the objections of one or two nations, said climate negotiation historian Joanna Depledge of the University of Cambridge.
“It’s not impossible to overregulate, but it’s politically very risky,” she said.
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Associated Press journalists Lujain Jo, Joshua A. Bickel, Olivia Zhang, Malak Harb, Bassam Hatoum and David Keyton contributed to this report.
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