UAE sets ‘mid-century’ goal for fossil fuel phase-down in climate summit agenda

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The United Arab Emirates president of the UN climate summit took a step forward in setting a “mid-century” timeline for the phasing down of fossil fuels produced without the capture of emissions, in his agenda for COP28.

The plan to capture greenhouse gas emissions, triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 and double energy efficiency to limit global warming was broadly welcomed, but did not satisfy the demands from countries and campaigners for the phasing out of new oil and gas production.

Sultan al-Jaber put forward his vision for COP28, to be held in Dubai in December, at a meeting of G20 ministers in Brussels on Thursday, urging them to “be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today”.

In an accompanying 15-page letter to ministers, Jaber said his plan would accelerate “the inevitable and responsible phase-down of all fossil fuels” and lead to “an energy system free of unabated fossil fuels in the middle of this century”.

This would keep within reach the global temperature rise to 1.5C ideally, as set down under the Paris Agreement, he said. The world has already warmed by at least 1.1C since pre-industrial times. 

The COP28 plan of action relies both on developing yet-to-be proven at scale technology, such as green hydrogen and carbon capture, at the same time as increasing renewable energy dramatically.

EU climate envoy Frans Timmermans underlined the need to “supercharge COP28 with renewable energy”, after the speech by Jaber. The EU has said it will push for a phasing out of “unabated fossil fuels well ahead of 2050”.

In his speech, Jaber, who remains head of the national oil company, said the energy transition would “require us to redesign the relationship between policymakers, the biggest energy producers and the biggest industrial consumers”.

Alok Sharma, president of the UK-hosted COP26 summit, welcomed the “clarity of a plan of action” and said it would be “a remarkable achievement” if COP28 set “a timeline on consigning fossil fuels to history”.

But campaigners remained unimpressed. The California-based Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty said the science was clear that the 1.5C global warming goal could only be achieved by an end to new fossil fuel projects.

Alongside the EU and Canada, China was a co-host of the meeting in Brussels, which marks the halfway point to the COP28 summit. China’s minister for ecology and environment, Huang Runqiu, told the gathering that it was a “very important juncture for global climate governance”.

COP28 will be the forum for the “global stock take” of progress by countries pledging to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement. Emissions need to be cut by 43 per cent by 2030 to keep to 1.5C warming, scientists agree, but have continued to rise annually.

The world remains on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4C and 2.6C by 2100, according to the UN Environment Programme. 

Kate Hampton, chief executive of the philanthropic Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and an unpaid adviser to COP28, said Jaber had “responded with a credible road map” after spending six months “consulting with stakeholders around the world”. 

The commitment to limiting warming to 1.5C was “particularly important”, she said, in light of questions about the viability of the temperature target. 

“The challenge now for the presidency is to ensure delivery across a comprehensive agenda, which can only be achieved with a transformational plan for mobilising finance,” Hampton said.

Avinash Persaud, an economic adviser to Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, who has championed the reform of the international financial architecture to deal with climate change, said Jaber’s “important call for action will focus efforts ahead of COP”. 

However, “more vigorous efforts” were needed to fill the loss and damage fund agreed at last year’s UN climate summit, with a minimum of $100bn annually. “Without that, this will be a defining failure that will overshadow significant gains elsewhere,” he said.

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