Delegations in Dubai begin a final marathon of negotiations before Tuesday. Objective: find an acceptable compromise on fossil fuels deemed responsible for global warming.
Four days before the end of COP28 in Dubai, it is time for the final marathon of negotiations. Delegates from all over the world are holding multiple meetings to reach a compromise. At stake in particular is the future of oil, gas and coal. will involve finding a subtle balance between the scientific imperative to exit fossil fuels -community reports are more alarming about global warming every year – and the necessary economic development of emerging countries.
Negotiators are frantically going through the latest draft agreement made public this Friday afternoon and which went from 108 to 206 articles in one week, with the aim of finishing the COP on time on Tuesday. This document provides one, two, three or more options on many items.
New formulas have appeared: on fossil fuels, at the heart of the discussions, five options are now proposed, including that of having “no text” – nothing on the subject – or even “an exit from fossil fuels aligned with the best available scientific knowledge”.
Diplomatic broom
Two other formulations for exiting fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) place more specific emphasis on the capture of emissions, a red rag waved by many countries including those of the European Union.
But their fate is also mentioned indirectly elsewhere, in particular in the passage which calls for a tripling of the capacity of renewable energies in the world by 2030. In short, this option says: agree to replace fossil fuels but only as renewables move upmarket.
A phraseology which echoes a joint declaration in November between China and the United States, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Beijing and Washington committed to “sufficiently accelerate the deployment of renewables (…) in order to accelerate the replacement of electricity production from coal, oil and gas”.
The end of fossil fuels is “inevitable”
The Emirati president of COP28 and boss of the United Arab Emirates national oil company, Sultan Al Jaber, did not promise that coal, gas and oil would appear in the final text but he repeated on Friday, as he has done for six month, that the reduction in the place given to fossil fuels was “inevitable”.
“It is certain that the decline in the consumption of fossil fuels will occur, in the long term”, he insisted at a press conference. However, in an allusion to his usual position that we should not get rid of oil too quickly, he reiterated “realistic, pragmatic”.
“We must be fair. We must be fair. We must be orderly and responsible in the energy transition”he said.
Underlying this: poor countries need energy to provide access to electricity, transport and development to their citizens; If rich countries want to end oil, they must set an example and finance solar and other renewable energies in the rest of the world.
Constructive China?
“We will not find an agreement without China”underlines the entourage of the French Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Despite its opposition to a sudden exit from fossil fuels, of which it is the world’s largest consumer, China is considered to be “constructive”, report participants, unlike Saudi Arabia accused of obstructionism.
The Chinese negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, is also increasing the number of meetings, seeming to indicate that his country does not want a final fiasco.
Its position as a major global producer of wind and solar power and its foothold in the world of emerging and developing countries could enable “China to unblock these negotiations stuck in the second week”, underlines Yuan Ying, from Greenpeace East Asia.
To satisfy Beijing, original formulations can still arise: “it is not binary or trinary, we will have to find something that allows us to have a consensus”, confides a negotiator from the fossil fuel exit camp.
The credibility of the COPs
Like every day, gatherings enliven the aisles of COP28.
Dozens of young activists gathered again to call for an end to fossil fuels, during a demonstration organized by “Fridays for Future”the school strike movement launched by the absent Swedish Greta Thunberg.
If COP28 fails to call for an exit from these, “this will call into question the credibility not only of COP28 but of the entire COP process”also warned the young Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate.