“We don’t have a minute to lose,” says UN Climate chief

Negotiations are entering the home stretch in Dubai, where COP28 ends on Tuesday. Two important subjects on the table: the gradual exit from fossil fuels and financial aid for the poorest countries.

Home stretch. Simon Stiell, the head of the UN Climate, called on the countries meeting at COP28 in Dubai on Monday, December 11, to lift “useless tactical blockages” in the last day of negotiations. “We don’t have a minute to lose”he pressed, judging that “the highest levels of ambition are possible” on the two inseparable subjects at the heart of the latest talks: the gradual exit from fossil fuels and financial aid for the poorest countries.

>> LARGE FORMAT. Twelve ministers recount 40 years of procrastination in the face of the climate crisis

“Every step back from the highest ambition will cost millions of lives.”he said. A new draft agreement is expected Monday morning. This new document will launch an intense sprint of negotiations, potentially followed by one or more sleepless nights for thousands of delegates and observers. In 28 years, the COPs have rarely finished on time.

“Failure is not an option”

The determined Emirati president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, boss of the national oil company, promised an agreement “historical” from December 12, the anniversary of the Paris Agreement. The objective of limiting warming to 1.5°C, seriously threatened, decreed during this COP21, is “his pole star”he added. “Failure is not an option. We seek the general interest, he warnedwe must find consensus and common ground on fossil fuels, including coal.”

All eyes are turning in particular to Saudi Arabia, which seems increasingly isolated in its hostility to a text calling for the end of fossil fuels. The world’s leading oil exporter, as well as Iraq and a few allies, are sticking to their positions hostile to any exit or reduction of fossil fuels, counting on nascent carbon capture technologies and brandishing the threat of an upheaval of the Mondial economy.

Yet, from NGOs to negotiators, participants express the same feeling that an agreement has never been closer to signal the beginning of the end of oil, gas and coal, the combustion of which since the 19th century has allowed the global economic growth at the cost of a warming of 1.2°C. At a major meeting on Sunday, ministers from around the world one after the other signed up to phasing out fossil fuels. China, seen as not very active at the start of the COP, is unanimously described as “constructive” behind the scenes.