An agreement on the end of coal, oil and gas remains to be found at COP28 in Dubai, but negotiations accelerate on Friday in Dubai in a hectic atmosphere, with Emirati President Sultan Al Jaber and country ministers committing for the home stretch.
– Not yet pessimistic –
“Please, let’s finish the job!” »Sultan Al Jaber launched Friday morning to the countries’ negotiators, after the traditional day of break on Thursday. He put four pairs of ministers from developed countries and the South to work to unblock the discussions.
He requested a third version of the draft agreement, where fossils must be cited, as of Friday afternoon.
Sultan Al Jaber, also head of the oil company Adnoc, warned the 197 participating countries that he wanted to close the COP on time, Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. local time (07:00 GMT), which would be exceptional: the last four COPs have all exceeded their scheduled end by more than 24 hours.
This boss with a methodical personality himself has never stopped talking about a historic COP, since the first evening, November 30, when the countries adopted a historic decision on the implementation of a fund to help poor countries. to pay for climate “loss and damage”.
“We surprised the skeptics and inspired the optimists,” he insisted on Friday.
He is not the only one to say this, despite the suspense that remains over the form of a final agreement around fossil fuels.
“I’ve been to a lot of COPs, and I feel a different energy here, a different sense of urgency and mission,” John Kerry, the American envoy, testified on Wednesday.
– China and the United States in action –
A handful of countries, including China, the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels, and Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, have so far opposed any mention of a phase-down. in English) or a phase-out of fossil fuels in the draft agreement.
Their opposition is balanced with the two wording options cited in the 2nd version of the draft agreement, dating from Tuesday:
– “a fair and orderly exit” from fossil fuels;
– or the commitment to “accelerate efforts towards an exit” from these fuels burned “without an emissions capture device, and to rapidly reduce their use to achieve carbon neutrality” by 2050.
This last formulation echoes that used by the two most powerful economies in the world, the United States and China, in a joint declaration in November: “sufficiently accelerate the deployment of renewables (…) in order to accelerate the replacement of energy production. electricity from coal, oil and gas.
But alternative formulations to these options can still emerge: “it is not binary or trinary, we will have to find something that allows us to have a consensus”, confides a negotiator from the exit camp.
– Saudi obstruction –
The group of Arab countries and Saudi Arabia in particular are “very obstructionist,” confides an observer from an NGO.
“Riyadh wants to clearly show that they will not change their energy policy under pressure from climate activists,” analyzes for AFP Umar Karim, country expert at the University of Birmingham.
At the same time, underlines Kristian Ulrichsen, Middle East expert at Rice University, “the Saudis do not want to appear isolated.” He believes that the kingdom will seek alliances with other countries, including China and Russia.
– COP29 –
Blocked for months, the designation of the country to chair the next COP, in a year, could be resolved here, after the announcement that Armenia supported Azerbaijan.
The COPs are organized each year in a different bloc of countries: for this year, Asia has designated the United Arab Emirates, and next year will be the turn of Eastern Europe, whose member countries must granted, according to UN procedure. However, Russia is opposed to the choice of Bulgaria, a member of the European Union… Which has not yet given its opinion.
Azerbaijan depends 90% on oil and gas, much more than the United Arab Emirates.
SOURCE: AFP
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