Cop28: Talks intensify to break impasse over slashing greenhouse gas emissions

The Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai enters a critical phase as negotiations intensified on slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next five days, ministers aim to break the impasse, formulating a text outlining a roadmap to limit global heating to a 1.5°C rise above preindustrial levels by phasing out or phasing down fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels for energy is by far the biggest cause of climate change. It is also the engine of modern life - even with the growth of renewables, fossil fuels produce around 80% of the world’s energy. UN climate chief Simon Stiell urges governments to prioritise the highest ambition, emphasising the need to avoid point-scoring and lowest common denominator politics. The UAE, as the host country plays a crucial role, with Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber appointing ministerial pairs to foster compromises between developed and developing nations. The COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021 made the first tangible progress toward a fossil fuel exit deal with an agreement to reduce coal use, but without mentioning oil and gas. At COP28 in Dubai, more than 80 countries are pushing for a broader pact to phase out all CO2-emitting fossil fuels. “The ‘phase out’ is a tool to reach the goal. And the goal is an energy system that has no emissions,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barthe Eide told Reuters at COP28. Aside from Norway, Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer, excluding Russia, this position is also backed by Western producers the United States and Canada, the 27-country European Union, climate-vulnerable small island states, some African nations including Kenya and Ethiopia, and Latin American countries Chile and Colombia. Opposition to a full fossil fuel phase-out, diplomats told Reuters, is led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and China, which is the world’s biggest carbon emitter. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that his country would “absolutely not” agree to a deal that calls for a phase-down. Sultan Al-Jaber, the United Arab Emirates’ COP28 president, said on Monday he was calling on countries to propose language on fossil fuels for the COP deal. “The phase down and the phase-out of fossil fuels is inevitable,” said Jaber, who is also CEO of the UAE’s state-owned oil firm ADNOC. Countries’ negotiators have only days to find agreement before the summit’s scheduled end on Dec. 12. With inputs from Reuters.