The climate summit held in Dubai, COP28, reached its last official day this Tuesday without an agreement and with harsh criticism of the draft pact presented on Monday by the presidency of this conference, in the hands of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). . Throughout the day and into the night, the delegates from the nearly 200 countries participating in these meetings have continued negotiations without reaching an agreement on how to establish the progressive end of fossil fuels.
The starting point is the text presented on Monday by the presidency, which has been rejected by environmental groups and by numerous countries that want a clear route to be established for the elimination of fossil fuels, such as the members of the European Union and several Latin American nations led by Colombia and Chile. They were joined by other countries, such as Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, which rejected the proposal in a joint statement.
In the text presented by the COP28 presidency, led by the UAE Minister of Industry, Sultan al Jaber, fossil fuels were mentioned and the door was opened to the reduction (not elimination) of their use and production. But many other doors were also left open that would allow coal, oil and gas, the main responsible for climate change, to continue being used in the coming decades, without a clear commitment to eliminate them.
“The text we published was a starting point for the discussions,” the director general of this COP28, Ambassador Majid al Suwaidi, defended this Tuesday. The intention of the presidency, he has maintained, was for the countries to react. “What we have seen since then is that the parties have deeply held and deeply divided views, especially on the language around fossil fuels,” added al Suwaidi, who stated that “many issues remain open.” What has been attempted in the last few hours is to find a formula to establish this progressive elimination of oil, gas and coal that can convince everyone, negotiation sources explain. Something really complicated because there are oil nations that do not want mention of fuel.
Negotiations have taken place throughout the day, waiting for a new draft. The appointment has not closed at 11:00 local time (three hours less in Spain) as officially planned, because the positions are very far apart.
Environmental groups harshly attacked Al Jaber's first proposal when it was released on Monday night. For example, the WWF described it as a “disastrous draft.” Along the same lines, the EU rejected the failure to establish a clear and immediate path for the elimination of fossil fuels. Europe is the one that is publicly pushing the most to ensure that this COP28 results in what the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, requested on Monday: the progressive elimination of fossil fuels. Guterres, who remains in Dubai, met this morning with the European delegation, which is headed by Spanish Vice President Teresa Ribera and European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra..
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In recent days, the United States and China have shown themselves in favor of mentions of the reduction of fossil fuels appearing in the final texts. Although they are not taking a very active stance at this summit in that sense. A retired John Kerry – he turned 80 on Monday and is already on his way out – spread a brief comment on his networks after learning about the draft of the presidency agreement. On the one hand, he said he appreciated the effort to “balance a variety of interests.” But he added that “the mitigation section needs to be substantially strengthened, including the issue of fossil fuels.”
By consensus
Majid al Suwaidi has recalled on several occasions that climate negotiations are based on “a consensus process.” “Everyone has to agree,” he emphasized.
On the less ambitious side at this summit are some oil countries, led by Saudi Arabia, that do not even want fuels to be mentioned in the final agreement that comes out of this summit. In their hands they have a blocking weapon: consensus, the system by which disputes in climate change negotiations have been resolved since the 1990s and which in practice means that a country or a small group of nations can paralyze the measures. more ambitious, causing the summits to close downwards. This same consensus system now also threatens a treaty that is being developed in other environmental negotiations: the agreement against plastic pollution, which should be closed in 2024.
A report, published a month ago by the organization Social Science Network (CSSN), analyzed precisely the blocking attitude of Saudi Arabia in the climate talks of the last three decades. And he put the focus on the system for settling disputes: “Riyadh is largely responsible for the absence of an agreed voting rule in the climate change regime. In the early 1990s, when decision-making rules were being designed, Saudi Arabia, along with OPEC allies, refused to accept any majority voting rules (e.g., two-thirds or three-quarters). ”. This led to the system settling with “consensus,” which is “a diffuse concept.” “It is different from unanimity, but, in practice, it means that a small group of countries – perhaps only two or three – can block the agreement and prevent a decision from being adopted,” the text states. The analysis explains that “this stagnation has never been overcome.” The consensus gives “disproportionate influence to the laggards and leads to a general decline in ambition, which suits Saudi Arabia very well,” the CSSN report concludes.
Not all UN environmental agreements follow that model. For example, the Montreal Protocol, which has managed to stop the increase in the ozone layer hole, provides that conflicts will end up being resolved by voting when consensus is not achieved. This same formula was the one that was planned for another treaty that is also being developed within the UN and that, once again, affects one of the main fossil fuels, the agreement against plastic pollution, whose main origin is Petroleum.
In March 2022, 175 countries agreed to create a treaty to curb plastic pollution. The mandate was to have a text ready by the end of 2024. But after two meetings, many countries doubt that this can happen. The main underlying debate is whether this pact should focus only on the pollution produced by plastics or whether it should also limit the production of virgin plastic given the very low recycling rates of this material in the world. Although the lyrics are different, the music is the same as in the climate negotiations: the less ambitious countries and with more interests in the fossil sector want to only talk about gas emissions and not the sources, that is, fuels. .
When the creation of the plastics treaty was agreed in 2022, it was suggested that disputes should be resolved by voting (with a two-thirds majority), but diplomatic sources who have been at the heart of these negotiations explain that the agreements have not been approved. rules of procedure because a minority of countries—led again by Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries—do not accept the vote and want the consensus system, as was evident in the last meeting on the plastics treaty that was held in November in Nairobi. .
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