The UN Cop 28 climate summit closed last week in Dubai with what many hail as a historic agreement from nearly 200 countries — to transition away from fossil fuels. It is the first time language around curbing all fossil fuels has appeared in a Cop outcome text, but many were disappointed that it did not go further in calling for a full phase-out.
"While we didn't turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end," UN climate body UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell said. The UNFCCC process relies on consensus. Parties "must agree on every word, every comma, every full stop", Stiell reminded delegates.
The decision "calls on parties to contribute" to global efforts to tackle climate change, including "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science". Previous draft iterations on 8 December included references to phasing out fossil fuels and on 11 December to reducing fuel production and consumption.
A full phase-out of fossil fuels garnered support from well over 100 countries, but there was pushback from oil-producing nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia. Producers' group Opec felt prompted to contribute, re-emphasising its belief in an "all energies" transition. Fast-forward to the end of the summit and Saudi Arabia's energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, front row between US climate envoy John Kerry and Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua, took part in a standing ovation for the landmark deal.
The final text represents the culmination of the first global stocktake — what will be a five-yearly undertaking, measuring progress against Paris Agreement goals and setting the path for the next few years. The Paris accord seeks to limit global warming to "well below" 2°C above pre-industrial averages and preferably to 1.5°C. But the energy section of the global stocktake is aligned with 1.5°C pathways.
As well as moving away from fossil fuels, the agreement calls on countries to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency rates by 2030, drawing on a key Cop 28 pledge.
Elastic language
These are concrete goals — not always expected in a Cop text, which often relies on "constructive ambiguity" to garner as much support as possible — and were broadly welcomed. But there was dissatisfaction on other points, including coal. A reference to reducing coal appeared for the first time in a Cop text just two years ago, at Cop 26 in the UK, and was repeated last year in the Cop 27 outcome. The phrase popped up again in this year's text — "accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power" — not moving the needle on the most polluting fossil fuel. The UK is "disappointed not to agree to do more on coal", the country's climate minister Graham Stuart said, but "we are unified around a common commitment to move away from fossil fuels".
"This text is not perfect but it lays the foundation… we can build on it," Bangladeshi climate envoy Saber Hossain Chowdhury said. "Of course we would have liked more," he added, but "we are on the path to a solution".
Several countries, including small island developing states and countries classed by the UN as least developed — both extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change — expressed concern about potential loopholes. The outcome "recognises that transitional fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy security", which is widely interpreted as leaving a door open for natural gas or LNG — an encouraging signal for the many IOCs and NOCs that see the latter in particular playing a growing role in their energy transition plans. "We want to raise the alarm that transitional fuels will become permanent, especially in developing countries," climate change ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda Diann Black-Layne said.
Others, including Germany's foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, pointed to the lack of a definition for the "energy systems" mentioned in the text, particularly around whether it referred only to electricity. G7 countries pledged two years ago to reach "overwhelmingly decarbonised" power sectors in the 2030s. Cutting electricity sector emissions is typically viewed as one of the more easily achievable transition actions, particularly compared with sectors such as transport, which are trickier to decarbonise.
The outcome text also called on countries to ramp up "zero and low-emission technologies", naming renewables, nuclear, low-carbon hydrogen and "abatement and removal technologies", such as carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS). The EU sees CCUS as "a minor part of the solutions space", while it is joined by the US in the belief that it should be for hard-to-abate sectors — such as cement production — only. But abatement is likely to have ended up in the final text to pacify oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which emphasised action on "emissions regardless of the source" in the closing plenary. Leading US oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Occidental see CCUS as a potential cornerstone of their energy transition strategies.
Market forces
Although the call to transition away from fossil fuels is less definitive than a phase-out or reduction, it points to a movement already under way — and now often market driven. The text notes that "mitigation technologies have become increasingly available, and that the unit costs of several low-emission technologies have fallen continuously", pointing to wind and solar power in particular.
Cost lies at the heart of the energy transition. Cop 28 scored early wins on climate finance, operationalising the loss and damage fund — set up to address the irreversible effects of climate change — on the summit's first day. Pledges from countries and institutions soared to billions of dollars. But the Cop 28 outcome sets out in black and white the trillions — not billions — of dollars needed, and the spectre of climate finance is due to loom again over next year's Cop 29 in Azerbaijan.
Many developing countries highlighted the need for climate finance to ensure all nations can implement the agreement. Kerry said that the global financial system must transform, while Black-Layne said that it "is actively aligned against our words [in the Cop text]".
And the realisation of the consensus is the key. "An agreement is only as good as its implementation," Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber told countries, adding that they must now "turn this agreement into tangible actions".
Kerry, who held a press conference with Xie at the summit's close, hailed the Cop outcome as a victory for multilateralism. China and the US "worked together to unlock [the] deadlock in negotiations", Xie told delegates.
The Cop process is not legally binding, but it charts a path for governments to follow, and this year's outcome was notable in its multiple references to the Paris Agreement goal of a 1.5°C temperature limit. Stiell pointed out the substantial achievements that Cops have made, influencing policy and driving change, even if it is necessarily incremental under a consensus-based process. "Without them we would be headed for close to 5°C of warming — open-and-shut death sentence… we're currently headed for just under 3°C… progress is not fast enough, but undeniably it is gathering pace."
