The director general of the 28th UN climate conference, Majid al Suwaidi, has declared that the presidency of the Arab Emirates is working on a new draft agreement after learning of the “red lines” expressed on Monday by the countries, which rejected overwhelmingly his first proposal.
The president of the climate conference is working on a new text, after publishing on Monday a document that several countries have considered too weak in terms of its references on fossil fuels. The European Union, the United States, small island states and many South American countries have been especially critical.
The talks will continue this Tuesday in a conference in which “itinerant diplomacy” will take center stage to seek rapprochement, although the positions are now very far apart.
Many nations criticized the draft agreement released Monday for not including a “phasing out” of oil, gas and coal.
Al Suwaid stated that the publication on Monday of the first draft of the ‘Global Balance’ (the conference’s key document) was “a starting point” to know the red lines of each country and thus be able to write a new, more ambitious and balanced text with the proposals from the parties to address climate change.
“The text we published was a starting point for discussions. This is totally normal in a process based on consensus. When we published it, we knew that opinions were polarized, but what we did not know was where the red lines were for each country “, said.
This diplomatic statement is surprising, given that the starting positions were known and those red lines were very predictable.
Thus, the diplomat continues, “by publishing our first draft of the text, we managed to get the Parties to quickly communicate those red lines to us. Last night we spent the night collecting those comments, which has allowed us to draft a new text,” Al Suwaidi reiterated.
According to the director of the climate summit, this new draft, not yet published, will include “all the elements” required by “a global plan for 2030”, although he did not provide details.
This way it will have all the ingredients that have been missing: issues about mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, with the intention of “seeking the right balance” between all these elements.
“Although the Presidency can guide, direct and encourage, the level of ambition must be agreed upon by the Parties and when the new text is published we will be open to new comments (…) to agree on the best possible plan for the world,” he stated.
Along these lines, he reiterated his willingness to agree on a “comprehensive plan” and to “do something historic” to stop the limit of global warming at 1.5ºC, an aspect that he defined as the “north star” of the process.
Al Suwaidi acknowledged that the draft showed that the Parties have deeply divided opinions, “especially on the language around fossil fuels.”
He also admitted that there are those who want the progressive elimination (phase-out) of fossil fuels while others want the progressive reduction (phase-down), but the objective is to “reach a consensus” and prevent it from causing blockages to the process.
For this reason, he invited the Parties to read and review the text as a “whole” aimed at achieving the 1.5ºC goal and reducing global emissions by 43%, equivalent to 22 gigatonnes of CO2.
“As a presidency, we have said that fossil fuel language should be part of the agreement, but now we need the parties to say how to land on it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Parties continue meeting on what was to be the last day of the climate summit, in order to agree on how to limit emissions to avoid exceeding the 1.5 degree global warming threshold.
This agreement was intended to coincide with the eighth anniversary of the Paris Agreement today, but the adoption of a historic text calling for an exit from oil, gas and coal now seems highly unlikely.
Germany’s delegate, Jennifer Morgan, said the talks had entered a “critical, critical phase.” “There’s a lot of shuttle diplomacy going on,” she said on X (formerly known as Twitter), referring to the fast-paced meetings between countries to seek compromise.
The draft released Monday sparked negotiations that lasted overnight and into the early hours of Tuesday. The text had included up to eight options that countries “could” choose to reduce emissions.
One of them was to “reduce both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a fair, orderly and equitable manner, to reach net zero by 2050, before or around 2050.”
But the measure does not refer to the “phasing out” of coal, oil and natural gas nor does it place emphasis on reducing their use this decade, which scientists say must happen to avoid an escalation of extreme weather events.
“I am worried… because it is very obvious that we need more ambition,” Denmark’s Climate Minister Dan Jorgensen told Reuters. “Of course I haven’t given up yet, we still believe this is possible.”
The draft was also criticized as too weak by participants including Australia, Canada, Chile, Norway, the European Union and the United States, among the 100-member group demanding a firm commitment to wean the world off coal, oil and gas. .
Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change. Despite the rapid growth of renewable energy, they still produce around 80% of the world’s energy.
