The world for the first time yesterday approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels, as UN negotiations in Dubai tackled the top culprit behind climate change, but at-risk countries said far more action was needed.
After 13 days of talks and several sleepless nights in a country built on oil wealth, the Emirati president of the COP28 climate summit quickly banged a gavel to signal a consensus among 194 countries and the EU.
“You did step up, you showed flexibility, you put common interest ahead of self-interest,” said COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber, whose role as head of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company had raised suspicion among many environmentalists.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Describing the deal as bringing “transformational change,” Al Jaber said: “We have helped restore faith and trust in multilateralism, and we have shown that humanity can come together.”
European Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra called the agreement “long, long overdue,” saying it had taken nearly 30 years of climate meetings to “arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”
However, with the UN talks requiring a consensus, Al Jaber carefully calibrated the text to bring onboard countries ranging from islands that fear extinction from rising sea levels to oil giant Saudi Arabia, which led the charge to keep exporting its petroleum.
Toughening language from an earlier draft that was roundly denounced by environmentalists, the agreement calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”
It asks for greater action “in this critical decade” and recommits to no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the hopes of meeting the increasingly elusive goal of checking warming at 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
The planet has already warmed by 1.2°C and scientists say this year was likely the warmest in 100,000 years, as storms, droughts and lethal wildfires expand around the world.
Marshall Islands Minister of Natural Resources and Commerce John Silk had said that the earlier draft marked a “death warrant” for his Pacific archipelago, which is just 2.1m above sea level.
Silk likened the final agreement to a “canoe with a weak and leaky hull, full of holes,” but added: “We have to put it into the water, because we have no other option.”
The small islands did not block the Dubai deal, but a representative from Samoa criticized the language as too weak after contending the group had not yet arrived in the room at Dubai’s Expo City when Al Jaber declared a consensus.
The text stopped short of backing appeals during the summit for a “phase-out” of oil, gas and coal, which together account for about three-quarters of the emissions responsible for the planetary crisis.
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