Agnès Pannier-Runacher welcomes “a good agreement”

“It’s a good deal.”estimates the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Wednesday December 13 on franceinfo after the agreement reached at the end of COP28 in Dubai. “For the first we obtain the exit from fossil fuels and I insist, it is an exit from fossil fuels. Making a ‘transition away from’, that’s what it’s all about”she assures.

However, the term “exit” was not included in the agreement. This term was rejected by the Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries. The text provides for a “transition away from fossil fuels”. The other formula considered and then rejected was the following: “‘Exit in an organized manner outside of’. So, it is a synonym which has made it possible to bring together all the countries around this objective which for the first time is formulated in a COP, to no longer be used from here 2050 fossil fuels”, argues Agnès Pannier-Runacher. Thus, the minister deduces that it amounts to the same thing.

The negotiations “were not easy”

Unlike Denmark for example, Agnès Pannier-Runacher does not want to use the word “historical” to qualify this agreement because it “We need to hear what developing countries have told us: ‘It’s good but we need to go further’”. The compromise reached at the 28th Climate Conference of the Parties remains “important”, she believes. Because it is supported by “oil producing countries, as well as countries very dependent on fossil fuels in their energy mix”. But Agnès Pannier-Runacher concedes that the negotiations have not “It hasn’t been easy, there has been a lot of tension.”

The Minister of Energy Transition recalls that the organization of this major global climate conference in Dubai had generated a lot of skepticism. Especially since the president of COP28, Sultan Al-Jaber, runs an oil company. “No one would have imagined ten months ago when the presidency was taken by the United Arab Emirates, that we could have had this agreement,” she congratulates herself while emphasizing that“we must not let our guard down to maintain the one degree five scenario, we will have to accelerate”. The Paris Agreement signed in 2015 set the goal of maintaining the increase in global average temperature “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to continue the efforts “to limit temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.