COP28 scrambles to agree a new draft deal after dismay over failing to call for fossil fuels to be phased out

• Insiders accused Saudi Arabia of leaning on COP28’s president 
• The proposed deal lists actions nations ‘could’ take, but are not bound to
• The deal also does not mention ‘oil’ or ‘natural gas’ in the 21-page document 

The United Arab Emirates, host of the COP28 climate summit, said Tuesday it would seek consensus with a new draft deal after wide criticism of language on fossil fuels.

Majid Al Suwaidi, COP28 director general, played down the attacks on the text released Monday, saying the Emirati hosts were testing countries’ ‘red lines’ and were working on another draft.

‘We need to work on how we put their views into the text in a way that everybody can be happy with, and that we can move forward to achieving the goals’ of checking warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, he told reporters.

‘I think that what happened with our text was really that we were on it having honest, practical, pragmatic conversations about where people’s red lines really were,’ he said.

‘The point is to get a consensus.’

One protester condemns the use of fossil fuels during COP28 

Under the rules of the UN climate convention, agreements need consensus of all participants – nearly 200 countries.

Saudi Arabia has led the charge against calls backed by vulnerable nations and Western powers to phase out oil, gas and coal, the biggest culprit in the planet’s climate crisis.

“We’ve known for a long time that the language around fossil fuels is complicated,” he said.

“There are those who want phase-out, there are those who want phase-down. There are those who want different formulations,” he said.

“The point is to get a consensus, and we don’t want one formulation that causes blockages in the process.”

Negotiators are already working past a deadline set by the Emiratis to complete work by the 13-day conference’s official close at 11 am (0700 GMT) on Tuesday.

“We all would like to finish on time, but we all want to get the most ambitious outcome possible. That’s our singular goal,” Suwaidi said.

Mr Kerry, who was confronted by climate activists as he left the meeting, described the pursuit of the 1.5C target as a ‘war of survival’.

The proposed deal set out a range of actions that nations ‘could’ take to cut greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2050, but were not bound to

‘I, like most of you here, refuse to be part of a charade’ of not phasing out fossil fuels, he said.

Some Pacific Island nations argued the text surrounding the 1.5C warming target amounted to a death sentence.

‘For us this is a matter of survival. We cannot put loopholes in our children’s futures,’ said Tuvalu’s delegation chief Seve Paeniu, who added the proposed text ‘doesn’t even come close to delivering 1.5 as a north star’.

Cedric Schuster of Samoa, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States, said its members felt their voices were not being heard.

‘We will not sign our death certificate,’ he said. ‘We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.

‘We have been asked throughout this process, what is at stake if these negotiations do not return a strong outcome that keeps 1.5 alive. How can you not understand – it is our very survival that is at stake?’

Zhao Yingmin, China’s vice minister for ecology and environment, said at the meeting that ‘the draft fails to address the concerns of developing countries on some key issues’ and in particular the idea that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025.

Despite the criticisms and allegations, Saudi Arabia and other oil-states remained steadfast in their approach to the deal. 

The nation’s representative at the climate summit, Noura Alissa, publicly said the deal ‘must work for all’.

‘It must be relevant, it must make to sense to accelerate action for every single country in this room, not some over others,’ she added. 

The talks are due to end on Tuesday, when a revised text is expected to be presented, but many observers expect it to run over.

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