Historic Agreement on “Switching Away from Fossil Fuels” in Dubai

An express process after days of hesitation and tension. Minutes after a plenary meeting had begun, which had been adjourned several times, Sultan al-Jaber crashed into his cauldron. By this gesture, the President of 28^e The Climate Conference of the Parties (COP28) sealed the agreement on the Global Stocktake, the most important text of the conference. In this assessment of the 2015 Paris Agreement, raising states’ ambitions included strong words against fossil fuels, which account for 80% of global warming. This is a decision “Accelerating climate action is historic”Sultan al-Jaber said after standing ovation from the room.

Before this crucial moment, delegates from all over the world needed a sleepless night to find acceptable terms. On Tuesday December 12, the official day of the COP28 conclusion, Mr. Al-Jaber first failed to finish his race on time. No one in Dubai believed it. A lot of pressure, a lot of problems, a lot of opposition between the national pavilions… Because, for the first time in the history of climate diplomacy, the UN The conference took up the taboo subject of fossil fuels. So the Emirati official kept postponing the release of the final version of the global stocktake. Later, he consulted through the night: countries like USA, European Union (EU), Bangladesh And, above all, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, who arrived after midnight… an essential night shift to prepare the ground for this final day of plenary.

In search of a prickly compromise between the parties most willing to leave (Phase Out) Having stuck to the economic model of fossil fuels (European Union, representatives of small islands, many Latin American countries) and producing countries for a long time, Sultan Al-Jaber then tried a new formula. In the “power package” of the latest version of the text, he added “Transition from Fossil Fuels in Energy Systems”.That is, A “Transition from Fossil Fuels in Energy Systems”.Without specifying the date.

This lexical and diplomatic creativity makes it possible to do without the term “phase-out” that has twisted the Gulf states, while trying to catch up more ambitiously. The goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 is recalled. It is a way to include developing and emerging countries because this development has to be done in a manner “Fair, Orderly and Equitable”At a different pace depending on the economy.

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