Unfortunately, a historic agreement to overcome the planet’s climate crisis has not materialized. Yet climate-vulnerable countries and environmentalists have won several important clean energy victories following a heated debate in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s largest producers of oil and gas.

Summit results

Although the summit was the closest countries have ever made to a global agreement to phase out coal, oil and gas, it still remained a “home game” for fossil fuel supporters, The Verge writes. All their strength to the climate conference.

Countries sat at the negotiating table “Phasing out fossil fuels”. This would close a glaring loophole in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which made no mention of coal, oil or natural gas, even though the international agreement was designed to stop global warming. A major climate report backed by the UN in 2018 found that countries need to cut their emissions by almost half by 2030 to meet targets set in the Paris climate agreement. Unfortunately, countries still cannot see the root of the problem.

Unfortunately, delegations suddenly stuck with this statement. To bring the agreements to the finish line, almost 200 countries had to agree on the same wording of a single sentence. Finally, Words directly calling for the phase-out of fossil fuels were deleted from the final text of the agreements reached. Instead the world received a weaker call. “To transition energy systems away from fossil fuels in a fair, orderly and equitable manner and to accelerate action in this critical decade.”.

The final text also includes a call for countries to work on “Accelerating efforts to phase out the continued use of coal energy”. It is clear that every word in this sentence is quite blurry. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and this is one of the reasons why it cannot be ignored in the climate agreement. However The obligation to gradually reduce use is certainly weaker than the obligation to stop completely.

There were encouraging signs last week when draft documents included versions of language calling on countries to phase out fossil fuel use. However, hopes were dashed when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) intervened by sending a letter to member countries. “prematurely reject any text or formula”This will call for the abandonment of fossil fuels.

Following this letter, language previously calling for countries to phase out fossil fuels was removed from subsequent draft texts. The reaction was swift. Former US Vice President Albert Gore wrote that the new wording reads as follows: “OPEC dictated this word for word”.

The new statement is quite dubious. Using the word “continuous” to refer to coal, oil or gas leaves a huge gap for fossil fuels. This means polluters can continue burning fossil fuels as long as they combine them with new technologies that capture greenhouse gas emissions (though often not 100 percent of those emissions).

This text is a step towards phasing out fossil fuels, but it is not the historic solution we were hoping for. Given the country’s overwhelming support for the renewable energy package and long-standing phase-out of fossil fuels, we needed a much more ambitious outcome.
said Andreas Sieber, deputy director of policy and campaigns at environmental group 350.org.

It is clear that this is not the end, because we have many more years of struggle ahead of us, which will be combined with the ever-worsening ecological situation in the world. Perhaps they will encourage some countries to reconsider their views and take action before it is too late.