Battle to save Cop28 climate deal in stand off over ending use of fossil fuels

Negotiations are continuing long into the night in Dubai – with the summit having already blown past its official end time

A battle over the future of fossil fuels has pushed the Cop28 climate summit into overtime – thanks to a stand-off between nations who want a dramatic phase-out of the burning of oil, gas and coal and those that don’t.

There were fraught talks late into the night on Tuesday with the summit having been due to officially end in the morning, to pull together a new draft deal that all nations could agree on – with the wording of a previous draft having been panned by a number of delegates.

Calling time on the fossil-fuel era has emerged as the central fight of the Dubai negotiations – as nations scramble to keep the goal of limiting average global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within reach, and with 2023 set to be the hottest year humans have ever experienced.

Monday’s draft had removed the words “phase out” and “phase down” from the options for delegates to agree upon, calling instead for “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner” while framing such cuts in output as optional. A number of nations, including Saudi Arabia, have objected to language such as “phase out” and “phase down”.

The Monday draft sparked a fierce reaction from some of the nations most vulnerable to the impact of the climate crisis, saying they had not come to “sign our death certificate” while a representative for the EU called the draft “unacceptable” and warned that the bloc could walk away from discussions. The US said that the wording of the draft text, including about fossil fuels, needed to be “substantially strengthened” and a number of other nations, the UK among them, called the text “disappointing” and that it needed to go further.

Activists protest on Monday evening inside the Cop28 venue after a draft of the final agreement dropped a call to phase out fossil fuels (Reuters)

On Tuesday evening, the US climate envoy, John Kerry, said that the next draft would contain stronger language than Monday’s effort. A Cop28 spokesperson said that the president of the summit, Sultan al-Jaber, was “determined to deliver a version of the text that has the support of all” as consultations continued.

Sir Alok Sharma, who was president of Cop26 in Glasgow, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the stakes were too high not to push as hard as possible to get a deal: “There is still an opportunity to get a historic outcome, the presidency and other countries should not give up. We are literally fighting for the future of our children’s lives.”

There is widespread consensus that the first mention of fossil fuels in a global climate agreement is a step forward, but many nations want much more.

On Tuesday morning, the summit director general, Majid al-Suwaidi, has given a press conference to defend the United Arab Emirates’ presidency. “We’re facing the most demanding Cop agenda of all time, and what we are seeing right now is everybody working through that agenda. All Cops are challenging, but in this Cop, we’re trying to do something that has never been done before,” Mr Suwaidi said. “Something historic. We are trying to agree on a comprehensive plan to close the gaps between where the world is and where it needs to be to keep 1.5C within reach.”

A Cop28 delegate yawns as negotiations continued into the early hours of Tuesday (Reuters)

He conceded many issues remained open, and that “lots of parties” felt that Monday’s text “didn’t fully address their concerns”.

“We expected that. In fact, we wanted the text to spark conversations. And that’s what’s happened,” he added.

Cop28 now joins the long list of climate summits since 2004 that have not finished on time. Cop27 in Egypt finished nearly 36 hours after the deadline last year, while the summit in Madrid in 2019 was the longest ever, going two days over.

As 11am came and went, the anger over Monday’s draft had not subsided.

“We did not come here to sign our death warrant. We came here to fight for 1.5C and for the only way to achieve that: a fossil fuel phase-out … We will not go silently to our watery graves,” said John M Silk, the Marshall Islands minister of natural resources and commerce. There were also protests inside the venue.

There was also anger from climate groups as Britain’s climate minister, Graham Stuart, left the summit during Tuesday’s negotiations to fly thousands of miles back to parliament for a crunch vote on his government’s controversial plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

A spokesperson for prime minister Rishi Sunak said that Mr Stuart would return to Dubai after the vote, a round-trip of more than 6,000 miles.

“As world leaders are locked in intense negotiations to discuss the existential threat posed by climate disaster, the departure of Mr Stuart is yet a further slap in the face to countries urging major polluters like the UK to act,” said Hannah Bond, co-director of policy advocacy at ActionAid UK. “In a shocking betrayal of trust as COP wraps up, the prime minister seems happier to fight the culture wars and not climate change"

But there was more optimism around about the likelihood of a deal later in the day. "I feel much more encouraged than yesterday," said the Canadian environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, on Tuesday evening.