As the United Nations climate talks in Dubai neared their culmination, participating countries moved closer to reaching what critics have called a watered down final deal on Monday, December 11, avoiding calls from more than 100 nations to phase out fossil fuels.
A new draft released on Monday afternoon on what's known as the global stocktake – the part of the talks that assesses where the world is at with its climate goals and how it can reach them – called for countries to reduce "consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner".
This triggered a frenzy of fine-tuning by government envoys and analysis by advocacy groups, hours before the planned finish to the talks on Tuesday – although many observers expect the finale to run over time, as is common at the annual COP talks.
Small island nations – some of the most vulnerable places in a world of rising temperatures and seas – blasted the draft. Final decisions at COPs have to be by consensus and objections could still torpedo this deal. Activists said they feared that potential objections from fossil fuel-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, had watered down the text.
"What we have seen today is unacceptable," Marshall Islands chief delegate and natural resources minister, Samuel Silk, said. "We will not go silently to our watery graves. We will not accept an outcome that will lead to devastation for our country, and for millions if not billions of the most vulnerable people and communities."
European climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called the text "disappointing," while Germany's foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called key elements in the text "unacceptable". "The need for urgency to replace and reduce fossil fuels in the power sector in this critical decade is completely missing. The language on coal contradicts EU energy policies and allows for new coal power plants. Most of all, the context on fossil fuels misleads the world. It suggests that fossil can continue to play an essential role in our future," Baerbock added.
Delegations are meant to be reaching a deal that’s in line with capping warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius to stop the worst effects of climate change, from devastating heat, droughts and storms to sea level rise and other extremes.
In the 21-page document, the words oil and natural gas did not appear, and the word coal appeared twice. It also had a single mention of carbon capture , a technology touted by some to reduce emissions, although it's untested at scale.
Activists said the text was written by the COP28 presidency, run by an Emirati oil company CEO, and pounced on its perceived shortcomings. It called for "phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption" but fell fall short of a widespread push to phase out fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal altogether.
The COP presidency, in a statement, countered that the text was a "huge step forward" and was now "in the hands of the parties, who we trust to do what is best for humanity and the planet".
COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber skipped a planned news conference and headed straight into a meeting with delegates just after 6:30pm. It was the second time he cancelled a press briefing on Monday. "We have a text and we need to agree on the text," al-Jaber said. "The time for discussion is coming to an end and there’s no time for hesitation. The time to decide is now." He added: "We must still close many gaps. We don’t have time to waste."
"This text is a nightmare of weak proposals and internal contradictions," said Tom Evans of the European think tank E3G. "The next 17 hours must see the champions of ambition rally hard." Jean Su from the Center for Biological Diversity said the text "moves disastrously backward from original language offering a phaseout of fossil fuels".
But Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa said the "text lays the ground for transformational change". He added: "This is the first COP where the word fossil fuels are actually included in the draft decision. This is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era."
On Monday morning, visibly tired and frustrated UN officials urged those in the talks to push harder for an end to fossil fuels, warning that time is running out for action. "We can’t keep kicking the can down the road," UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said. "We are out of road and almost out of time."