Dubai, United Arab Emirates – “We have a say on fossil fuels for the first time ever,” said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, president of COP28, as he criticized the agreement that the Global Stocktake at the UN’s annual meeting on climate change would close a day late. Al-Jaber is right. After more than thirty years of UN negotiations on climate change since the 1992 Earth Summit, the words “fossil fuels” appear for the first time in an officially adopted UN decision document. Previously, climate negotiations focused exclusively on emissions, without mentioning where those emissions came from.
An overnight squabble between the 196 countries negotiating the Global Stocktake (GST) at COP28 produced the shiny new outcome document. The new GST avoids the unfortunate previous situation where the original GST text prompted OPEC and other oil and gas producing countries to use the incredibly hurtful words “phasing out.” Instead, the new GST gently calls on countries to participate in global efforts such as “the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”
Since the new GST was adopted by consensus at COP28, this new wording was apparently able to mollify the negotiators and hordes of climate activists who strongly rejected the second GST draft. In their view, that misplaced text merely suggested that countries could choose from a list of measures aimed at tackling the problem of man-made climate change, including “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels.” .
At the closing session, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said COP28 should “signal a hard stop on humanity’s core problem – fossil fuels and their planet-burning pollution. Although we have not turned the page on the era of fossil fuels in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end.”
The GST is hopeful that it is still possible to keep the global average temperature 1.5 degrees below the pre-industrial average (1850-1900) if humanity reduces its greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 and by 2035 wants to reduce by 60 percent compared to 2019 levels.
Besides calling for a shift away from fossil fuels, the GST also highlights other avenues to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These include tripling global renewable energy capacity and doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030; gradually phasing out the generation of electricity from coal; and, also for the first time in a UN climate decision document, accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, including, wait for it, nuclear power. In another gesture towards energy and climate realism, the GST also recognizes “that transition fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition.” Translation: Reducing carbon emissions by switching from coal to natural gas is a big step in the right direction.
The GST also assumes that countries will take immediate action on their greenhouse gas emissions, but further notes that “this does not mean that a peak will be reached in all countries by 2030.” Why? Because “peaking may be shaped by sustainable development, poverty reduction, needs and equality, and may be consistent with different national conditions.” This simply recognizes the obvious fact that many poor countries will have to use cheap fossil fuels to grow their economies and lift their citizens out of poverty.
The GST is intended to guide countries over the next two years as they review and update their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to tackling climate change, in line with their obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement. NDCs describe what each country plans and promises to do over the next five years (2025-2030). The new NDCs should be in line with the conclusions of the GST and submitted to the UN environment before the COP30 meets in Brazil in 2025.
