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"Fossil Fuel Fight" Front and Center @COP28 [1]

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Date: 2023-12-04  

A leading Earth scientist says the UN Climate Talks, COP28, need to acknowledge that we are now “truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era for the world economy. And that we are now starting to bend the curve, properly.”

“It is only that that will count whether COP28 is a success,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate, told CNBC. “Everything else will follow. So, of course, it is good to make progress on loss and damage, Article 6, financing, adaptation, nature, agriculture and water, but it is all following from whether or not we make progress on the fossil fuel phase-out.”

Rockstrom echoes the strong belief of many participants that this COP must finally aggressively address a phase-out. A draft text released Friday suggests that “phase out” could be part of the final deal reached at the conference’s conclusion.

In an alarming conversation last month with Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber, said there is “no science” behind the belief that phasing out fossil fuels could keep global warming at the 1.5 degree C target set in the Paris Agreement in 2015. A phase-out, he said, would “take the world back into caves.”

US Climate Envoy, John Kerry, speaking at COP28 Sunday, noted that “G7 countries voted that there should be a phasing out of unmitigated fossil fuel emissions and what there is science for is keeping 1.5 degrees as your North Star.”

“Every decision we make should be geared to say, ‘does this advance the 1.5 degrees or is it going to be more destructive and take us in the wrong direction.”

Not everyone is on board with calls for a phase-out. Russia has said it would oppose this language being used in the final agreement, while COP28 host the United Arab Emirates has signaled its preference for a phase-down. Big Oil, too, is pushing for a shift of focus away from calls to phase out fossil fuels. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods told CNBC on Saturday that society should instead prioritize reducing emissions, which he described as the “true problem.”

At last year’s COP27, at over 80 countries called for a phase-out in the final document. That movement is expected to gain momentum over the next two weeks in Dubai. A call to phase-out would signify, after almost 30 years of negotiations, a formal recognition that fossil fuels are the largest driver of climate change.

The final document is expected to be completed at the COP's conclusion on December 12. Calling for a phase-out commitment would mean shifting from fossil fuels until they are eliminated, whereas a phase-down would not completely end their use.

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