COP28 is at odds with climate leaders on the future of fossil fuels

The incoming chairman of the UN COP28 summit disagrees with top environment ministers on how to curb global warming as he pushes for continued long-term use of fossil fuels by capturing their carbon emissions.

Speaking at the end of the two days Petersberg Climate Dialogue in BerlinSultan al-Jaber, who is also the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said fossil fuels “will continue to play a role for the foreseeable future”.

The world should keep “all sources of energy,” he said, reducing emissions using carbon capture and storage, a technology that has yet to be demonstrated on a large scale.

“If we are serious about climate change mitigation and practical emissions reductions, we need to scale up carbon capture technologies,” he said, adding that in the UAE, “we have taken a comprehensive and holistic approach to the energy transition. “

A “parallel track” was needed to scale up renewable energy sources, he said. “Our focus should be on phasing out emissions. . . while enabling socio-economic progress”.

But several ministers and summit delegates disagreed on the long-term outlook for continued oil and gas production and use.

We want to make sure that if we add new energy, we are purging the dirty old energy out of the system.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, sharing the stage with Jaber for a closing press conference, said: “We have to get out of fossil fuels, we have to drastically reduce emissions.”

Danish Minister for Global Climate Policy Dan Jørgensen also told the FT there were concerns “about making sure [CCS] does not become an excuse not to do the [energy] transformation we need”.

“I don’t think we should push back [CCS]. There are emissions that we are not able to phase out,” he said, pointing to industry examples such as cement production. However, he added: “This should not be seen as something we do instead of replacing fossils with renewables.” .

Also speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the vulnerable Marshall Islands, and Maisa Rojas, Chilean environment minister, called for “honesty” at COP28 on ending the use of fossil fuels.

“We need to really honestly look at where we are, what we haven’t done, and what we need to do,” Stege said. “The era of fossil fuels must end.”

“We . . . want phasing out. We want to make sure that if we add new energy, we’re purging old dirty energy out of the system,” Rojas added.

Climate activists have raised concerns about promoting carbon capture as a climate solution, arguing it is a means for oil and gas producers to continue business as usual rather than investing the equivalent in wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

“We cannot pretend that the solutions to the climate crisis lie in unreliable and untested technological fixes that will bring new risks and threats,” said Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network.

During the Berlin conference, ministers and other delegates from more than 40 countries held private meetings where discussions included the possibility of a deal to phase out fossil fuels at COP28 in December.

At last year’s COP27 in Egypt, efforts to reach such a deal failed, despite support from dozens of countries including the US and the EU.

A person involved in the Berlin discussions this week said there was debate about including the word “nonstop” in any deal, to refer to phasing out oil and gas production without capturing emissions.

Delegates discussed what that would mean in practice non-stop, what technologies could be used and how to ensure that the inclusion of carbon capture and other technologies does not affect the switch to renewable energy.

Denmark’s Jørgensen said a fossil fuel deal at the COP was “realistic” with “momentum” building, though he added that “some parties are still resisting it”.

Some of the resistance was related to the idea that rich, industrialized countries should be the first to phase out fossil fuels from their economies, while “there are also producing countries that are not yet ready to make that decision,” he said.

Both Jørgensen and Baerbock also said they hoped that a new global target for renewable energy would be set at COP28. Baerbock called for a global renewable energy target in Berlin, just weeks after G7 leaders set targets to increase renewable energy capacity.

As UAE prepares to host COP28 following rally in Egypt that imposed a de facto ban on protests, Jaber said COP28 team was practicing inclusivity with 60% of its staff made up of women , also mainly from the southern hemisphere, at an average age of 34.