Climate Summit’s U-Turn – From Heroic Vows to Muffled Whispers
Greens erupt as fossil fuel ‘phaseout’ is dropped from proposed climate deal
By Karl Mathiesen, Zia Weise and Sara Schonhardt
But representatives of other countries, including a bloc that includes China and India, said they would not accept any language proposing either a “phaseout” or “phase-down” of specific energy sources.
Negotiations at the Expo City campus on Dubai’s outskirts were expected to continue through the wee hours on Tuesday — the scheduled final day of the summit.
Earlier that evening, summit president Sultan al-Jaber urged the nearly 200 governments assembled to be flexible and make a deal. The “world is watching” after almost two weeks of discussion, said al-Jaber, who is also the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company.
Protesters stood outside chanting: “This text is bullshit.”
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore unloaded on the proposal, saying in a statement that “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure.”
“The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word,” Gore said. “It is even worse than many had feared.”
The U.S. State Department said the text needs improvements to “secure a strong outcome” for the summit.
“We appreciate the effort on the part of many to produce the text, which seeks to balance a variety of interests,” department spokesperson Chad Houghton said in a statement. But he said some of the language, “including the issue of fossil fuels, needs to be substantially strengthened.”
