DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The European Union says it’s time for the oil boss presiding over this yr’s international local weather talks to step up and push for a fossil gasoline phaseout.
Spanish Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera, who represents EU governments within the negotiations, mentioned Sultan al-Jaber, the COP28 president and CEO of the Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Firm, wanted to take a extra lively position within the ultimate days of the two-week-long talks, that are scheduled to finish on Tuesday.
“We’re within the exhausting second the place we’d like the clear engagement of the president of the COP,” she informed POLITICO in an interview on Saturday. “He ought to be taking part in not solely the position of a moderator, however the position of a frontrunner attempting to establish how we will open this pathway towards the outcomes that we have to get.”
Ribera’s feedback got here as oil producers have stepped up their marketing campaign towards efforts to name for a phaseout of fossil fuels within the ultimate COP28 settlement.
In a letter leaked to a number of information companies on Friday evening, the secretary-general of the OPEC oil cartel urged member international locations — which embody the UAE and Saudi Arabia — to reject any textual content that targets the manufacturing and consumption of fossil fuels.
”It appears that evidently the undue and disproportionate stress towards fossil fuels could attain a tipping level with irreversible penalties, because the draft resolution nonetheless comprises choices on fossil fuels part out,” reads the letter, signed by Haitham Al Ghais.
Ribera — who known as OPEC’s push towards a fossil gasoline phaseout “disgusting” in feedback to reporters earlier on Saturday — informed POLITICO she expects al-Jaber to make good on his promise to make sure this summit is a “turning level.”
“It’s clear {that a} overwhelming majority of events represented right here wish to see a transparent pathway towards the decline and phaseout of fossil fuels,” she mentioned. ”However there are additionally some international locations that want to water down no matter is claimed about this.”
Chatting with reporters on Saturday, the UAE’s chief negotiator, Hana Al Hashimi, mentioned: “The president has been very vocal on his need to see an final result on fossil fuels within the textual content.”
Al-Jaber will host ministers for discussions within the afternoon and night on Saturday, earlier than writing a brand new model of the deal.
The latest draft negotiating textual content options 4 totally different choices for language to explain the way forward for fossil fuels — all function the phrase ”part out” alongside varied qualifiers — in addition to the choice of getting no fossil gasoline point out in any respect. The EU, Ribera mentioned, isn’t proud of any of the 4 selections in isolation.
Combining components of all of the choices could be the one method to ship a “constant sign towards paving the best way for a fossil gasoline phaseout,” she mentioned.
Ribera argued the ultimate deal ought to embody references to reaching a peak in international greenhouse fuel emissions by 2025 and guardrails round using carbon seize know-how — a know-how to entice or take away emissions that’s unproven at scale.
“If we depend solely on watered down and weak textual content, which will backfire” towards al-Jaber, she warned.