- For the first time in climate summits, diplomats from nearly 200 countries at COP28 have agreed on a new global climate pact.
- While past United Nations climate deals called for countries to reduce emissions, they shied away from overtly using the words “fossil fuels.”
- Africa should be allowed to exploit its significant oil and gas reserves to develop its economies before transitioning to cleaner energy forms.
For the first time in climate summits, diplomats from nearly 200 countries at COP28 have agreed on a new global climate pact that clearly outlines the need to “transition away from fossil fuels,” including oil, gas, and coal that have been hazardously heating the planet.
The agreement was reached on the final day of the COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, following two weeks of intense negotiations in a year regarded as the hottest. European leaders and most nations most exposed to climate-fuelled extreme conditions advocated for a language that calls for a complete “phaseout” of fossil fuels.
However, significant oil-producing nations, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and fast-growing nations like Nigeria and India, opposed that proposal.
Nevertheless, the negotiators reached a compromise: The new global climate pact rallies the countries toward accelerating a global shift away from fossil fuels in this decade in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner” and to entirely cease adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2050.
Moreover, the new climate accord calls on countries to triple their renewable energy outputs, including solar and wind power, globally by 2030 and slash methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas.
“Fossil fuels” in the new global climate pact
While past United Nations climate deals called for countries to reduce emissions, they shied away from overtly using the words “fossil fuels,” even though burning oil, gas, and coal is the leading cause of global warming.
Nevertheless, the new climate pact is not legally binding and cannot, on its own, force any country into action. Many business leaders, environmentalists, and politicians hoped the pact would warn policymakers and investors that it is the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.
In the next two years, each country must submit a formal, detailed strategy on how it plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions through 2035. The COP28 agreement is intended to guide those strategies.
“This sends a clear signal that the world is moving decisively to phase out fossil fuels, turbocharge renewable energy and efficiency, and tackle forest loss and degradation,” said Jake Schmidt, the senior strategic director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “It formally tells the fossil fuel industry that its old business model is expiring.”
A diplomatic win for the UAE
Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati official and oil executive presiding over the negotiations, has termed a phaseout of fossil fuels “inevitable” and has bet his reputation on persuading other oil-rich nations to ink a significant new climate change agreement.
“Through the night and the early morning hours, we worked collectively for consensus,” said Sultan Al Jaber on the final day of the 2023 UN climate negotiations before a room full of applauding delegates. “I promised I would roll up my sleeves. We have the basis to make transformational change happen.”
Whether countries will follow through on the agreement remains to be seen. According to scientists, countries will need to scale down their greenhouse gas emissions by close to 43 per cent in this decade if they hope to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to previous levels. Beyond that level, as per the scientists, human beings find it challenging to adapt to rising sea levels, extreme storms, drought, and wildfires.
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Hope for meaningful climate action
Previous climate deals often failed to steer meaningful action. In 2021, countries reached an agreement in Glasgow to “phase down” coal-fired power plants. However, Britain approved a new coal mine only one year later, and global coal usage has since risen to record levels.
As bleary-eyed delegates in Dubai argued in overnight sessions over the precise language they should apply in proposing new climate change actions, they had to wrestle with the challenges of a global transition away from fossil fuels in greater detail than before.
Saudi Arabia and oil and gas companies urged the negotiations to focus on emissions instead of fossil fuels, intimating that carbon capture and storage technologies could trap and bury greenhouse gases from oil and gas and tolerate their continued usage. Nations have struggled to deploy that technology broadly.
However, other global leaders contended that switching to cleaner energy options, including solar, wind, or nuclear, was the best way to cut emissions, reserving carbon capture for rare situations without alternatives.
The final text of the new global climate pact urges countries to accelerate carbon capture, “particularly in hard-to-abate sectors.” Some negotiators were concerned that fossil-fuel companies could seize on that language to carry on with high-rate emissions while promising to capture later.
Africa’s stand in the new global climate pact
Many African nations vehemently opposed a sweeping call to phase out fossil fuels. The continent’s negotiators argued that Africa accounts for only a minute fraction of global emissions and should be allowed to exploit its significant oil and gas reserves to develop their economies before transitioning to cleaner energy forms.
“Asking Nigeria, or indeed asking Africa, to phase out fossil fuels is like asking us to stop breathing without life support,” said Ishaq Salako, the Nigerian environmental minister. “It is not acceptable, and it is not possible.”
Some climate activists criticised wealthier emitters like Europe, Japan, and the United States for failing to provide enough financial support to low-income economies to help them transition from fossil fuels. Many countries in regions like Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia confront inflation and rising interest rates, rendering financing new renewable energy projects unfeasible.
The new global climate pact nods to the role of finance, but nations resolved to tackle the issue in detail in the next summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024.
“The text calls for a transition away from fossil fuels in this critical decade, but the transition is not funded or fair,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, an environmental group. “We’re still missing enough finance to help developing countries decarbonize, and there needs to be a greater expectation on rich fossil fuel producers to phase out first.”
