Talks at Cop28 set to intensify in bid to break
impasse over fossil fuels
UN climate chief calls for ‘highest ambition’ as
nations wrangle over draft agreement
Fiona
Harvey in Dubai
Fri 8 Dec
2023 04.00 GMT
Negotiations
on how the world can slash greenhouse gas emissions and stave off the worst
impacts of the climate crisis will reach a fresh intensity over the next few
days, with nations wrangling over whether to phase out or phase down fossil
fuels.
For the
remaining five negotiating days of the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai
ministers will hold a series of meetings to try to break the impasse and
present a text that sets out a roadmap for staying within a rise of 1.5C of
global heating above preindustrial levels.
Simon
Stiell, the UN climate chief, told countries: “Now all governments must give
their negotiators clear marching orders – we need highest ambition, not
point-scoring or lowest common denominator politics. Good intentions won’t
halve emissions this decade or save lives right now.”
As the
talks reach their conclusion the host country, the United Arab Emirates, holds
the key to what next happens. The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, of the UAE,
will, with his team, appoint pairs of ministers, each pair representing a
developed country and developing country. Their task is to liaise and find
compromises.
Al Jaber is
chief executive of the UAE national oil company, Adnoc, which is planning to
expand oil and gas production capacity. He came under fire last week after the
Guardian revealed that he had claimed there was “no science” that said phasing
out fossil fuels was essential to staying within 1.5C. He subsequently told the
Guardian he wanted “the most ambitious outcome” from the talks.
Al Jaber
told negotiators: “What we have collectively accomplished only in a week is
nothing short of historic. In just seven days we have demonstrated that
multilateralism does actually work. It is alive and well.”
He is to
convene a plenary session on Friday morning of all parties, at which he has
promised to use “all the tools available” to forge an agreement. “The
presidency will assess the status of the different items [under negotiation]
and lay out a tailored approach to conclude all outstanding elements,” he said.
Only the
presidency will have a full overview of how each strand of the negotiations is
progressing, and its role is pivotal. Last year some countries complained that
the Egyptian hosts, at Cop27, were opaque in their methods, releasing sections
of draft text to small groups of negotiators in sealed rooms.
There is
expected to be more transparency this year, and the UAE hosts have a much
bigger team and greater resources to manage the task of giving more than 190
countries the opportunity for input.
The key
draft text is to do with the global stocktake. This is a requirement of the
2015 Paris climate agreement, a comprehensive assessment of the progress – or
lack of it – towards the Paris goals of holding global temperature rises to
“well below 2C” while “pursuing efforts” to limit temperature rises to 1.5C
above pre-industrial levels.
Within this
text, the most contentious lines are over the potential phase out or phase down
of fossil fuels. More than 100 countries support a phase out of fossil fuels,
but they face stiff opposition from some countries, including Saudi Arabia,
China and India. There is no certainty that any language on fossil fuels will
make it into the final text.
Negotiators
told the Guardian that as the text moves from the technical level, overseen by
civil servants, to political negotiations involving mainly ministers, there is
still little sense of what the “landing ground” of any compromise could be.
Governments
have already been meeting for more than a week, and after a rest day on
Thursday are scheduled to resume on Friday morning. With only a few days to go
until the Tuesday evening deadline for the talks, the lack of agreement on the
most contentious issues is unsurprising.
Talks were
buoyed early on, when, with unprecedented speed, one of the longest-running
issues in climate negotiations was resolved on the first official day. Loss and
damage is the name given to the funds needed for the rescue and rehabilitation
of poor and vulnerable countries stricken by climate disaster.
The fund
was “operationalised” last week, in a rare show of unity, and more than $800m
has since been pledged. This is not nearly enough, as countries’ needs are
likely to reach hundreds of billions, but it marked a promising start.
With loss
and damage settled, countries were able to move on to the other segments of the
talks, which alongside the global stocktake include what is known as the
“mitigation work programme”, a global goal on adaptation. Developing countries
want the amount of climate finance devoted to helping them adapt to the impacts
of extreme weather to at least double; for them the key issues are about
equity, justice, human rights and finance.
Madeleine
Diouf Sarr, from Senegal and chair of the least developed countries group, told
the Guardian: “This is a big fight, the global stocktake. We are already at
1.2C, so we need to really close the gap to get to net zero emissions.
Developed countries must take the lead [on cutting emissions]. It’s not easy,
it requires a lot of negotiation, but the guiding principle must be of common
but differentiated responsibilities – historical responsibility [for
emissions].”
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