Global Impact: Cop28 hails historic transition away from oil, gas, and coal, but is this really the end of the fossil-fuel era?
- Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world
- In this issue, we look back a the 28th United Nations climate change conference, Cop28, which took place in Dubai
Cop28, the 28th United Nations climate change conference attended by negotiators from 197 nations and the European Union, concluded with a historic consensus on Wednesday in Dubai.
that calls on nations to “transition away” from fossil fuels to keep within reach of the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“We have language on fossil fuel in our final agreement for the first time ever,” Cop28 president Sultan al-Jaber, who is also the chief of Abu Dhabi National Oil, said in a speech on Wednesday.
The deal, which came 24 hours after the summit’s deadline, was an important step toward ending the use of fossil fuels – the toughest climate issue during Cop28, as countries were divided on whether to include the specific language of a global commitment to “phase down” or “phase out”.
This was despite criticism from climate activists that the final wording left too much latitude for some countries to keep using – or even increasing their usage – of fossil fuels.
