The world must stand behind a historic resolution made last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the United Arab Emirates has said, in a last-minute intervention attempting to help break an ongoing impasse at the UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The petrostate’s stance will be seen as delivering a sharp public rebuke to its neighbour and close ally Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to unpick the global commitment at the UN climate talks – known as a conference of the parties (Cop).
Last year, the UAE hosted Cop28 and helped deliver a historic commitment to transition away from fossil fuels by almost 200 countries. This key outcome marked the first time in 30 years of near-annual climate meetings that the issue had been directly addressed.
The requirement was contained in a document called the UAE Consensus. A UAE spokesperson told the Guardian: “The UAE Consensus is the culmination of an intense set of negotiations that proved the value of multilateralism.
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“As a Cop decision, it is by definition unanimous. All parties must honour what they agreed. They must now focus on implementation by providing the means to take it forward with a robust NCQG [new collective quantified goal on climate finance]. We urge all parties to focus on this outcome.”
At this year’s talks, Saudi Arabia and its allies have been attempting to roll back on this commitment. They tried to sideline discussion of the phase-out of fossil fuels into a separate track of the talks, under finance, and refused to allow the commitment to be included in crucial texts.
The UAE intervention against its “brother nation” Saudi Arabia was seen by diplomats as highly significant.
After Cop28, UAE instituted a “troika” system for UN Cops, whereby the three countries that were the current, immediate past and next hosts agreed to co-operate to try to ensure the talks run smoothly.
At a formal plenary on Thursday, Saudi Arabia it would “not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels”.
That comment prompted Catherine McKenna, a former climate minister for Canada and chair of the UN group on net zero emissions commitments, to post on social media: “I am so sick of Saudi Arabia’s opposition to any suggestion of a transition away from fossil fuels. We are in a fossil fuel climate crisis. Please go hard everyone at #Cop29 and get it done.”
On the current state of play at the talks, Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said: “This Cop presidency [the host country Azerbaijan which leads negotiations] is one of the worst in recent memory and is overseeing one of the most poorly led and chaotic Cop meetings ever. Cop summits are a delicate and precious thing, they require skill and determination in order to progress global climate action and land a successful deal.
“We only have a matter of hours remaining to save this Cop from being remembered as a failure for the climate and embarrassment for the rich world,” he added.
Meanwhile, in an overnight letter to Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan, who is a lead negotiator, the Irish campaign group Stop Climate Chaos underlined the world is “at a critical juncture, not just in this Cop process, but for the future of the Paris Agreement and climate justice”.
Over coming hours at Cop29, it said, the agreement must be protected first and foremost. “That priority work must ensure that the achievements on fossil fuel language at Cop28 are further enhanced to stay within the 1.5-degree limit”.
Adequate climate finance based on the needs of developing countries must be provided to ensure developed countries uphold their responsibilities, it said, to ensure a global just transition, and to ensure new and enhanced national determined contributions – the key commitments that countries make under the Paris pact – can be achieved.
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