DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Nations climate negotiators on Wednesday ordered the world to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels, a move the talk leader called historic despite critics' concerns about Loopholes.
“Humanity has finally done what was long overdue,” said Wopke Hoekstra, EU Commissioner for Climate Protection. After nearly 30 years of talking about carbon pollution, climate negotiators in a key document explicitly targeted what traps the heat: the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Just minutes after opening the session on Wednesday, COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber agreed to the key document – the global stocktaking of how the world has gone off track on climate and how to get back on track – , without asking for comments. The delegates stood and hugged each other.
“It is a plan guided by science,” al-Jaber said. “It is an expanded, balanced, but make no mistake, a historic package to accelerate climate action. It is the UAE consensus.”
“For the first time ever, we are talking about fossil fuels in our final agreement,” said al-Jaber, who is also CEO of the United Arab Emirates oil company.
United Nations climate minister Simon Stiell told delegates that their efforts were “necessary to signal a hard stop on humanity's central climate problem: fossil fuels and the pollution that is burning the planet.” Even as we enter the age of fossil fuels “Having failed to turn around fuels in Dubai, this result is the beginning of the end.”
Stiell warned people that this is a “lifeline for climate protection and not a finish line.”
The new deal was passed early Wednesday and was stronger than a draft proposed a few days earlier, but had loopholes that angered critics. Analysts and delegates wondered whether there would be a dispute over details, but al-Jaber moved quickly, not even giving critics a chance to clear their throats.
A few minutes later, Samoa's chief delegate, Anne Rasmussen, complained on behalf of the small island states that they had not even been in the room when al-Jaber said the deal was done. She said that “the required course correction is not assured” because the deal represents “business as usual” rather than exponential emissions reduction efforts. She said the deal could “potentially take us backwards rather than forwards.”
When Rasmussen finished, the delegates cheered, applauded and stood, while al-Jaber frowned and eventually joined in the standing ovation that lasted longer than his praise. The Marshall Islands delegates hugged each other and cried.
Bolivia described the agreement as a new form of colonialism. But on Wednesday there was more self-congratulation than castigation.
“I am in awe of the spirit of cooperation that has brought everyone together,” said US special envoy John Kerry. He said it shows that multilateralism can still work despite the global wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. “This document sends very strong messages to the world.”
The deal also includes a requirement to triple the use of renewable energy and double energy efficiency. Early in the talks, the conference approved a special fund for poor countries affected by climate change, and nations committed nearly $800 million to the fund.
“Many, many people here would have liked clearer language,” Kerry said of fossil fuel divestment. But he said it was a compromise.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, whose OPEC threatened to torpedo a deal, hailed the agreement as a success.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has targeted oil companies and their huge profits, also celebrated, saying in a statement: “For the first time, the result recognizes the need to move away from fossil fuels.”
“The age of fossil fuels must end – and it must end with equity and justice,” he said.
The deal does not go so far as to seek a “phase-out” of fossil fuels, which more than 100 nations, including small island states and European nations, had advocated. Instead, it calls for a “just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems to accelerate action in this crucial decade.”
The agreement states that the transition should occur so that the world achieves net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and follows climate science guidance. It predicts the world will peak its ever-growing carbon pollution by 2025 to reach the agreed threshold, but leaves room for individual nations like China to peak later.
Intense sessions with all sorts of delegates lasted into the early hours of Wednesday after the first document of the conference presidency angered many countries by avoiding crucial calls to curb warming. Then shortly after sunrise, al-Jaber presented a new document to delegates from nearly 200 nations.
It was the third version submitted in about two weeks, and the word “oil” appears nowhere in the 21-page document, while “fossil fuels” appears twice.
“This is the first time in 28 years that countries have been forced to grapple with fossil fuels,” Jean Su, director of energy justice at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press. “So this is a general victory. But the actual details therein are seriously flawed.”
“The problem with the text is that it still contains huge loopholes that allow the United States and other fossil fuel producing countries to continue fossil fuel expansion,” Su said. “There is a pretty fatal, fatal flaw in the text that allows the continuation of transition fuels,” which is a code word for natural gas, which also emits carbon pollution.
Several activists highlighted what they said were loopholes.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning climate activist, said that while it was an important milestone “to finally recognize that the climate crisis is, at its core, a fossil fuel crisis,” he called the deal “the bare minimum.” “. “Half measures and loopholes.”
“Whether this is a tipping point that truly marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era depends on what happens next,” Gore said.
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Associated Press journalists Jon Gambrell, Malak Harb and Bassam Hatoum contributed to this report.
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