Climate Summit Deal Pledges Transition Away From Fossil Fuels

A new deal has been agreed upon at the UN climate summit (COP28) in Dubai. For the first time, it calls on all countries to move away from using fossil fuels.

Burning fossil fuels drives global warming, risking millions of lives. Thus far, governments have never collectively agreed on putting an end to their use.

Following days of negotiations, the text relies on vague language that could allow some countries to take minimal action.

Certain countries and climate experts say the COP28 deal signals the end of the fossil fuel era, but it falls short of calling on the world to “phase-out” oil, coal, and gas. It lacks the ambitious language over a hundred countries and numerous climate groups have been calling for.

Instead, the agreement “calls on” countries to “contribute” to global efforts in reducing carbon pollution in ways they see fit, offering several options. One of these involves “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems…accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050.”

The text of the deal recognizes the need for deep, rapid, and sustained reductions if humanity is to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Fossil fuels pledge at climate summit reaction

The COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber said nations had “confronted realities and…set the world in the right direction. We have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement for the first time ever.”

“We have delivered a paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our economies,” he added.

John Kerry, the USA’s climate envoy, says everyone should be pleased with the deal, considering the challenges posed by the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Everyone here should feel good, he says, even if the deal is not perfect. “Everyone might have said things a bit differently…but I think this is a cause for optimism,” he adds. “I am in awe of the spirit of cooperation.”

More than a hundred countries had lobbied hard for strong language in the COP28 agreement to “phase out” oil, gas, and coal usage but came up against powerful opposition from the Saudi Arabia-led oil producer group OPEC, which argued that the world can slash emissions without shunning specific fuels, Reuters reports.

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an intergovernmental organization, however, said it was “exceptionally concerned” about the agreement. “We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step-change,” it said in a statement.

Many climate experts, while cautiously welcoming the reference to fossil fuels in the agreement, point to weaknesses, including leaving the door open for fossil fuel expansion to continue.

The director of the NGO Climate Action Network Europe, Chiara Martinelli, said: “While this morning’s COP28 text signals support for the clear science that there is no space for fossil fuels in the future, it falls short in providing the fair scale, clarity and speed we truly need.”