- Countries adopted the first-ever climate deal that calls for a transition away from fossil fuels.
- The deal also calls for the world to triple renewable energy by 2030.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Nearly 200 countries on Wednesday reached a historic climate deal calling for the transition away from fossil fuels starting this decade and the tripling of renewable energy by 2030.
The deal marks the first time that countries addressed the leading cause of the climate crisis – burning coal, oil, and gas – and set a global target for boosting renewables like solar and wind power. Past UN climate agreements have mostly avoided fossil fuels.
"It's clear that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a close," Joab Okanda, senior climate advisor at Christian Aid, a relief organization, said in a statement. "We may not have driven a nail in the coffin here in Dubai but the end is coming for dirty energy."
Diplomats were negotiating into the early hours on Wednesday to strike a balance between more than 100 countries who demanded a "phase out" of fossil fuels – something small island nations facing rising sea levels said their very existence depends on – and major oil, gas, and coal producing nations like Saudi Arabia and China who opposed such language.
Many climate advocates said that this years' summit, known as COP28, would be a failure without a fossil fuel "phase out." But the compromise is stronger than a draft released Monday, which said countries "could" choose from a menu of options to decarbonize their economies. That draft was described by an official from Samoa as a "death sentence."
The location of this year's UN summit makes the compromise especially significant. The United Arab Emirates is the seventh-largest oil producer in the world and a member of OPEC, a powerful oil cartel that lobbied against a fossil fuel "phase out" in the days before a final deal was reached. The role of Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Emirate's state-owned oil company, as COP28 president also attracted intense scrutiny of whether he could rally world leaders around a deal to transition away from fossil fuels.
Al Jaber on Wednesday congratulated countries for putting the common interest ahead of self interests and said the deal can lead to transformational change.
Jean Su, acting co-executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told reporters on Wednesday that Al Jaber's role as an oil executive worked in civil society's favor.
"It finally dragged fossil fuels onto center stage and forced politicians to deal with it," she said.
The compromise does have several caveats that leave the door open to more fossil fuel production, including references to technologies that capture greenhouse gas emissions and store them away. Critics argue that carbon capture technology is an unproven and expensive distraction from renewable energy, which is cheaper and available now. The deal also says that "transitional fuels" can play a role in the energy transition – a nod to gas, which is less polluting than coal, but still a major contributor to global warming.
Climate scientists warn that the world must cut emissions by at least 42% this decade, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels. Otherwise, it will be difficult for humans to adapt to more extreme disasters like heat waves, drought, flooding, and rising sea levels.
The world has already warmed an average of 1.2 degrees Celsius and countries are dealing with the fallout, including a deadly wildfire in Hawaii, drought in the Horn of Africa, and sweltering heat waves. This year is on track to be the hottest on record.
Big promises, disappointing delivery
The deal in Dubai caps another UN summit where big promises are made, but rarely delivered. In 2015, countries struck the Paris Agreement that urged emissions cuts in line with the 1.5 degrees Celsius target. Since then, emissions have risen to record levels, although a rapid rise in solar, wind, and electric vehicles has slowed the pace.
In 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, countries agreed to phase down coal plants that aren't equipped with technology to capture emissions as well as "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies.
Yet both issues are headed in the opposite direction. China and India continue to build new coal plants and fossil fuel subsidies surged to a record $7 trillion in 2022 as countries dealt with the global energy crisis following Russia's invasions of Ukraine, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Meanwhile, poorer nations are always trying to hold rich economies like the US and Europe accountable to their promises to finance efforts to respond to the climate crisis.
In Dubai, countries set up a "loss and damage" fund for counties most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis that raised at least $700 million. The deal also called for doubling adaptation finance for developing countries by 2025 – estimated at about $40 billion. Adaptation refers to efforts by countries more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas, like early warning systems, restoring forests and mangroves that can be natural barriers to flooding, and building sea walls.
"Even if we phase out fossil fuels, we still have to deal with the inevitable impacts of climate change," Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, told reporters. He pointed to a recent UN report that said $387 billion in adaptation finance is needed per year.
A tool for accountability
Even though climate action is slow, observers told BI that without the annual UN summits, there wouldn't be much transparency or accountability. The voluntary agreements don't guarantee any outcomes, but they do set the global direction of travel, according to Alden Meyer, a COP veteran and senior associate at the EG3 think tank.
"Countries are required to show how they're living up to what they decided here, both in their national pledges under the Paris agreement and in their actions back home," Meyer told BI.
He added that whether China stops building new coal plants, or the US stops permitting new gas export facilities, can't be decided at UN climate summits. But the event, which attracts tens of thousands of people, puts the pressure on these countries to do more, Meyer said.
People will always ask whether voluntary declarations can make a difference, US Senator Brian Shatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, said during a press conference earlier this week.
"If they didn't, they wouldn't have the fossil fuel industry so nervous," Shatz said, in response to a question about the nearly 2,500 fossil fuel lobbyists who attended the summit in Dubai – about four times more than previous event. "They understand their business model is in peril."