From Politico
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Climate talks in Dubai ended with a deal to curb the use of fossil fuels that was both historic and 30 years too late.
The two-week conference, held in the oil-rich desert kingdom of the United Arab Emirates and presided over by an oil CEO, brought two competing realities into a painful collision. The planet is overheating, yet humanity remains inextricably reliant on coal, oil, and natural gas.
The talks ended on Wednesday with a deal among almost 200 countries that committed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” notably by speeding up that shift before 2030. But the agreement also appeased oil-rich Gulf states by explicitly sanctioning those fuels’ use during the transition. And organizers gaveled it through so hastily that representatives for vulnerable island nations, who had a series of misgivings about the text, had yet to enter the room.
Still, leaders of the U.N. summit and representatives of major governments were quick to endorse the nonbinding pact as a historic acknowledgment that the world needs to move quickly to cleaner energy sources.
Read the full Politico story here
A turn away from fossil fuels
From Bloomberg Politics
After marathon talks, delegates from 198 countries at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai hammered out a deal to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels.
The question remains whether the action envisaged is urgent enough to stem the planet’s warming — this year was the hottest ever recorded.
The agreement is a major win for the United Arab Emirates, which had pledged to use its yearlong COP28 presidency to get fellow oil-producing OPEC members onside and commit to ambitious climate action.
At times, it looked like they would fail, with COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber facing a wall of skepticism over his role as chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
In the end, the so-called UAE Consensus calls for countries to quickly transition energy systems away from hydrocarbons in a “just” and “orderly” fashion. These caveats made the deal palatable to oil- and gas-producing nations worried about the impact of the shift on their tax receipts.
Read the full Bloomberg story here
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