COP28 Draft Text Highlights Division Over a Fossil Fuel Phase-Out - OilPrice.com
COP28 Draft Text Highlights Division Over a Fossil Fuel Phase-Out | OilPrice.com
The future of fossil fuels and possible language on the phase-out of fossil fuels in the final text of COP28 continues to be debated at the climate summit as the latest draft shows.
The latest version of the draft text with “refined textual building blocks”, published on Friday, offers several options for language about the phase-out of fossil fuels, including an option not to include any text.
The draft text published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change says that the countries will be called upon “to take further action in this critical decade towards:” and lists four options for the final text.
“Option 1: A phase out of fossil fuels in line with best available science.”
“Option 2: Phasing out of fossil fuels in line with best available science, the IPCC’s 1.5 pathways and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement”
“Option 3: A phase-out of unabated fossil fuels recognizing the need for a peak in their consumption in this decade and underlining the importance for the energy sector to be predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050.”
Option 4 reads “Phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net-zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century.”
And then there is another “Option 4: no text,” the latest draft showed.
Countries are divided on the issue of the role of fossil fuels and the language of phase down /phase out in the final statement that leaders will agree to at the COP28 summit.
Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg that the Kingdom would not endorse any text that calls for the phase down of fossil fuels at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, will “Absolutely not” be happy to have the language “fossil fuels should be phased down,” the Saudi minister said.
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By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate diplomacy
Talks are well underway in preparation for the next major international meeting on climate change, 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), scheduled to begin Nov. 30 in the United Arab Emirates.
Much like last year’s COP27, finances — specifically, aid to developing nations — will be at the center of conference deliberations.
The conference faces an even greater sense of urgency brought on by the Sept. 8, 2023, release of the first global stocktake, which calls for accelerated action to meet the goals set in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (COP21).
Climate diplomacy: COP 27 | Climate diplomacy: COP 28 | Climate diplomacy: COP 29