Nations strike deal at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels

DUBAI:

Representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed at the COP28 climate summit on Wednesday to begin cutting global fossil fuel consumption to avoid the worst of climate change, a first-of-its-kind agreement signaling the eventual end of the oil era.

The agreement reached in Dubai after two weeks of tough negotiations was intended to send a strong message to investors and policymakers that the world is united in its desire to break with fossil fuels, which scientists say is the last best hope to avert climate catastrophe.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber called the agreement “historic” but added that its real success will be its implementation.

“We are what we do, not what we say,” he told the packed plenary at the summit. “We must take the necessary steps to turn this agreement into tangible actions.”

Several countries cheered the deal because it achieved something elusive in decades of climate talks.

“It is the first time that the world has come together around such a clear text on the need to transition from fossil fuels,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Ide.

“It was the elephant in the room. We’re finally facing it head on,” he said.

More than 100 countries had pushed hard for strong language in the COP28 deal to “phase out” the use of oil, gas and coal, but faced strong opposition from the Saudi-led oil group OPEC, which argued the world could reduce emissions without avoiding specific fuels.

That battle pushed the summit a full day into overtime on Wednesday.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries collectively control nearly 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves along with about a third of global oil production, and their governments rely heavily on this revenue.

The climate-vulnerable small island states, meanwhile, have been among the strongest proponents of phasing out fossil fuels and have the support of huge oil and gas producers such as the United States, Canada and Norway, along with the bloc of EU and many other governments.

“This is a moment where multilateralism has really come together and people have taken self-interest and tried to define the common good,” US climate envoy John Kerry said after the deal was approved.

A representative of the Alliance of Small Island States also addressed the plenary, protesting that the agreement had been given before its representatives arrived in the room, and criticizing the text as unambitious.

Reading The new COP28 draft agreement does not have a “phase-out” of fossil fuels

“We have come to the conclusion that the course correction that is needed has not been secured. We have made an incremental move towards business as usual, when what we really need is an exponential step change in our actions,” he said.

But she did not formally object to the pact and her speech drew applause.

Danish Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jorgensen admired the terms of the deal: “We are here in an oil country, surrounded by oil countries, and we made the decision to say let’s get away from oil and gas.”

OPEC resistance

The agreement specifically calls for “the transition from fossil fuel energy systems, in a fair, orderly and equitable manner … to achieve net zero by 2050, based on science.”

It also calls for tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030, accelerating efforts to reduce carbon use and accelerating technologies such as carbon capture and storage that can clean industries that are difficult to decarbonize.

Now that the agreement is complete, countries are responsible for delivering through national policies and investments.

In the United States, the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, for example, climate-conscious governments have struggled to pass laws aligned with their climate pledges through a politically divided Congress.

US President Joe Biden scored a major victory on this front last year with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for electric vehicles, wind, solar and other clean energy technologies.

Growing public support for renewable energy and electric vehicles from Brussels to Beijing in recent years, along with improving technology, falling costs and increasing private investment have also led to rapid growth in their facilities.

Even so, oil, natural gas and coal still account for about 80% of the world’s energy, and predictions vary widely about when global demand will peak.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais had said in a letter dated December 6 to OPEC members and allies at COP28 that the world should target emissions and not fossil fuels themselves, rallying them to oppose any deal that targets the oil.

Oil producers have argued that fossil fuels can be cleansed of their climate impacts by using technology that can capture and store carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon sequestration, however, is expensive and has yet to be proven at scale.