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Meanwhile, as the ministers and their staff gathered at the Expo City campus outside Dubai, protesters stood outside and chanted: “This text is stupid.”
The former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, opened the petition, saying in a statement that “COP28 is on the verge of complete failure.”
“The world desperately needs to get rid of fossil fuels as soon as possible, but this terrible example reads like OPEC ordered it verbatim,” Gore said. “It’s worse than many feared.”
The US State Department said the text needed improvements to “ensure a strong outcome” for the meeting.
“We appreciate the effort of many to produce the text, which tries to balance many interests,” State Department spokesman Chad Houghton said in a statement. But he said that some languages, “including the issue of oil, need a lot of strengthening.”
The text released on Monday includes a list of measures that governments will agree to pursue – albeit voluntarily. It included tripling the world’s renewable energy by 2030, doubling the pace of energy conservation by benchmarks, “four times faster” “total coal cuts” and limited licenses for new power plants. The tripling of renewables is a key goal agreed upon by the US and China at another summit last month.
But most controversially, the document avoided demands from the EU, the US and small islands to “remove” oil. (The US, EU, Australia and other industrialized countries refer directly to “non-degradable” fossil fuels – those that do not capture the harmful gases before they enter the atmosphere. … to achieve net zero in, first, or 2050.
Al-Jaber’s proposal was met with sadness by the small island countries, the European Union and the green, who saw the announcement as a betrayal of their hope that the COP28 will clearly show that oil must be stopped .
“The Marshall Islands government did not come here to sign our death warrant,” said John Silk, the country’s natural resources and industry minister.
“Overall it is clear that it is not enough and it is not enough to solve the problem that we are here to solve,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
Others were more willing.
Mohamed Adow, the director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, said the agreement “lays the foundation for revolutionary change.”
He said it was an agreement between the oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which opposed any mention of fossil fuels, and many “progressive” governments. “We’ll be lucky if we accept this.”
Two representatives from African countries, who have not been identified to speak directly about the sensitive talks, said that for many countries in their continent the idea the fossil fuel ban is impossible.
“It’s a non-starter,” someone said.
The talks are officially set to end on Tuesday, just days before the end of the winter season. the grounds of the Expo City eco-futurist. But Hoekstra, for one, expressed doubt that a quick decision is in store.
“There are a lot of countries that really want and need more in terms of exclusion, and in terms of content. of literature, and in terms of getting rid of coal, and in terms of making this decade the decade. we express the greatest urgency,” he said. “And it is up to us to make sure that these voices are heard and that this is resolved in the next day or days or however long it takes. “
Sara Schonhardt, Zack Colman and Zia Weise contributed reporting from Dubai.