Adds reaction from negotiators and NGOs throughout
A new draft negotiating text from the UN Cop 28 climate conference calls upon countries to take action including "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science". It does not mention a phase-out of all fossil fuels.
This text is a draft for the global stocktake, which concludes in Dubai and measures progress towards Paris Agreement goals. It will be the main outcome of this summit. It is the first draft released by the Cop 28 presidency, illustrating that negotiations have moved along, but it remains to be seen how all parties will react to the new language on the contentious issue of fossil fuels.
A senior Arab states negotiator told Argus that the group expects further amendments on fossil fuels. Spain's climate minister Teresa Ribera told reporters that the EU "[considers] this a very insufficient text" on fossil fuels. "The EU cannot accept this proposal," Denmark's climate minister Dan Jorgensen said.
Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber told parties in a plenary convened after the text was released that then need to show "flexibility" and "deliver the highest ambition on all items including on fossil fuels".
The draft also calls on countries to take actions which could include "rapidly phasing down unabated coal" and "limitations on permitting new and unabated coal power generation". This goes further than previous language on coal, which called for "accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power".
It includes a call for parties to ramp up "zero and low emissions technologies", naming renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) "so as to enhance efforts towards substitution of unabated fossil fuels in energy systems".
The text references a key Cop 28 pledge, asking countries to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency rates by 2030.
The president's draft calls on countries to accelerate efforts "towards net zero emissions energy systems… well before or by around mid-century" and to phase out "inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible". The Cop process has previously called for a phase out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, but has not before attached a definition. The text on subsidies echoes the language used in G20 meetings.
The previous global stocktake draft had four options for a phase out of fossil fuels and one for no text on the subject at all.
Language around curbing all fossil fuels has never been included in a Cop outcome text, but non-profit World Resources Institute (WRI) director of international climate action David Waskow said this text does not set the bar as high as it could be. The presidency's role is also help parties to reach the greatest level of ambition possible, he said.
"We need a fossil fuel phaseout, not an optional ‘reduction' in fossil fuels", civil society organisation Oil Change International global policy lead Romain Ioualalen said. References to ‘low carbon fuels' in the text are "coded language for promoting fossil gas", he added.
Several ministers today pointed to strong momentum for language around a phase-out of fossil fuels in the final outcome of Cop 28, including French minister for energy transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher and Swedish climate ambassador Mattias Frumerie.
Ireland's environment minister and EU lead negotiator on climate finance Eamon Ryan cautioned earlier today that the text would not be "be perfect for everyone".
