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Environment
| COP28

Fossil fuels: a coalition of countries calls for an “urgent phase-out”.

A coalition of eighteen countries led by the Marshall Islands is calling for an urgent phase-out of fossil fuels and a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. They call for systemic transformations across all sectors, starting with a rapid decline in fossil fuel production and use by this decade to combat global warming and meet the Paris Agreement target.

Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Le 17 July 2023

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A coalition of eighteen countries led by the Marshall Islands called on Friday for “an urgent exit from fossil fuels” and “a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025” at the close of a climate summit in Brussels five months ahead of COP28.

The fight against global warming is at stake, as is the debate surrounding the elimination of fossil fuels.

“We must accelerate the global energy transition away from fossil fuels”, the G7’s stated objective, and “we must reach peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 at the latest”, states the text signed by ministers representing Germany, France, Senegal, Colombia and several island states. “This requires systemic transformations in all sectors, driven by an urgent exit from fossil fuels, starting with a rapid decline in their production and use this decade,” they write in a final declaration from the 7th Ministerial Summit for Climate Action (MoCA) in Brussels.

These assertions underline the lines of negotiation that are clashing in the run-up to the UN climate conference in Dubai, where mankind must agree on how to save the endangered objective of the Paris Agreement: to contain global warming “well below 2°C” compared to the pre-industrial period, and if possible to 1.5°C.

We must eliminate “unabated” fossil fuels, i.e. those not backed by carbon capture and storage systems, well before 2050,” said European Environment Commissioner Frans Timmermans, another signatory of the declaration, in a speech in Spain on Tuesday.

What is meant by “unabated” promises to be hotly debated between now and COP28.

The eighteen ministers warn: “Abatement technologies must not be used as a green light for the continued expansion of fossil fuels (…) and should be recognized as having only a minimal role to play in the decarbonization” of energy.

COP28: The Emirate of Dubai presents its plan for an accelerated energy transition

On Thursday in Brussels, Emirati COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber presented his plan. He hopes to secure an ambitious agreement in Dubai on speeding up the energy transition, but will not commit to a timetable for phasing out fossil fuels.

“I don’t have a magic wand, I don’t want to invent dates that aren’t justified” for lack of sufficient development of low-carbon energies to meet global growth, he declared in an interview with AFP.

Among the concrete objectives he proposed. Triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030, to 11,000 gigawatts. Double energy efficiency by 2030 and hydrogen production to 180 million tonnes by 2030.

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