COP28 draft agreement drops phase-out of fossil fuels

Mr Bowen was speaking in his role as chairman of the so-called “umbrella group” of countries at the COP negotiations, which includes among its 11 members the US, Britain, Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. The EU also hit back at the draft text.

Mr Bowen and the umbrella group appear to be backing countries that want the communique to call for “a transition away from fossil fuels in an orderly and just manner”, and “a phase-out of unabated fossil fuels”.

In an emotive finale to his remarks, he noted the words of a Pacific minister who had said his country would not sign a document that represented its death certificate. “We will not be a co-signatory to those death certificates,” Mr Bowen said.

Ministers from the 190-plus countries at COP28 negotiated through the Dubai night, trying to push the proposed communique one way or the other. Several more iterations of the document are expected. The talks are supposed to wrap up on Tuesday, but that looks highly unlikely.

Could or should?

The first draft of the proposed communique did acknowledge the need for “deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”.

But it then listed a set of actions that countries “could” take – a level of optionality which addressed China’s concern that COP communiques are becoming too prescriptive.

Mr Bowen also criticised this: “We didn’t come here to agree on what we could do, we came here to agree on what we should do.”

The draft document more or less held the previous COP line on coal, which was first singled out at COP26 in Glasgow two years ago despite Indian and Chinese anxieties. The text urged countries to put “limitations on permitting new and unabated coal power generation”.

Dr Jaber told a brief plenary session that all countries still needed to “show flexibility”. He called for “the highest ambition on all items, including on fossil fuel language”.

Saudi Arabia wants to avoid any references to fossil fuels, or failing that to talk only about abating emissions rather than cutting production.

The text does mention “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels”, but only “to achieve net-zero by, before or around 2050”.

Need for speed

The UAE has staked its national prestige on getting this COP to take a step forward on tackling emissions, hoping to demonstrate the young country’s coming of age as a geopolitical broker and influencer.

Other countries are concerned that the UAE is looking for a quick resolution rather than pushing for higher ambition. They say that if the COP does not spur faster action, the world will not be able to keep global warming below the UN-agreed safety limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which Dr Jaber repeatedly refers to as his “North Star” for the summit.

Many ministers and almost every green activist said they wanted to see a greater sense of momentum, clarity and drive in the COP28 blueprint for getting to net-zero. And most responded to the draft text by saying it was a step backwards from the communiques of the past two years.

“Everything is optional. Any mention of deadlines has been watered down, along with the removal of the words ‘phase out’,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics.

“Every single thing you could think of that the fossil fuel industry would want is in there, begging the question: who holds the pen?”

Tom Evans, a policy adviser at think tank E3G, said the UAE proposals were “not a credible response to the crisis we are in. … The text needs considerable strengthening to pass the bar of ambition.”

He called on ministers who were the “champions of ambition” to “rally hard and isolate those who are holding ambition back”.

Mr Bowen said Australia was prepared to be flexible in the forthcoming negotiations, but “we can’t be flexible on ambition … that’s not up for compromise”.