(Dubai) COP28 produced a climate agreement on Wednesday marking the start of a “transition away from fossil fuels”, a text considered modest, but nevertheless historic by observers and signatory states.
“We have a mention of fossil fuels in our final agreement for the very first time,” welcomed the president of the conference, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, after quickly declaring the text adopted, with a bang of the gavel, from the first minutes of the plenary session.
This agreement “is the consensus of the United Arab Emirates,” he said proudly, after enjoying the thunderous applause from the room.
The text adopted by the countries meeting in Dubai “calls on the parties” to initiate a transition to eliminate all forms of fossil fuels in energy systems, by “accelerating action during this critical decade”, in accordance with what the scientific data to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
In UN jargon, “call” is an invitation to action, but “it is the weakest term” to formulate it, reacted Leo Hickman, editor and director of the specialized site Carbon Brief, on the social network .
It is nevertheless an improvement over the conditional wording contained in the draft text which was published on Monday and which attracted a wave of criticism.
The agreement also calls on countries to “accelerate efforts to phase out unabated coal-fired electricity,” triple renewable energy production capacity to world and to double the average annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.
“The wording of the text is exceptionally imprecise and opens the door to all kinds of (erroneous) interpretations,” said Mr. Hickman. Nevertheless, this is progress. »
Even if the adopted text lacks teeth, this very first mention of fossil fuels in an international agreement in three decades of climate negotiations will ensure that future conferences “will only tighten the screws on dirty energies,” indicated Mohamed. Adow, director of energy and climate at the Power Shift Africa think tank.
No objections, but disappointments
No country objected to the agreement, but some spoke of their disappointment during the long plenary session that followed its adoption.
“It’s a small step in the right direction, a good message, but in today’s context, when temperatures are rising and people are dying, it’s not enough,” said the Marshall Islands representative.
The Alliance of Small Island States also complained about the rapid adoption of the text, even though its representatives had not yet arrived in the room.
“We have taken a step forward from the status quo, but it is an exponential change that we really needed,” lamented its president Anne Rasmussen, representative of the Samoa Islands, to whom the delegates gave a standing ovation. standing.
“ [Ces applaudissements] demonstrate the efforts to be made to respect our commitments”, declared the envoy of the President of the United States for climate, John Kerry, welcoming a text “stronger than any other before”.
China, whose climate envoy Xie Zhenhua strongly contributed to reaching the adopted compromise, according to various observers, welcomed the agreement, while regretting that the concerns of developing countries were “not fully addressed”. taken into account “.
Saudi Arabia, which openly opposed during the conference any mention of fossil fuels in the final text, before giving up, touted an agreement allowing the objective of limiting the rise in average temperature to be achieved. of the Earth at 1.5 degrees Celsius “respecting the characteristics of all nations”.
The result of COP28 is “monumental”, reacted the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, on his return to Canada.
“We have reached a global consensus […] to ensure a transition towards clean energy, moving away from fossil fuels,” he stressed.