DUBAI — The second crack at a breakthrough climate deal has parties debating language that was strengthened from a previous draft about the reduction of fossil fuels, as delegates try to salvage U.N. Climate Change Conference talks.
The world’s largest economies, fossil fuel producers, poor countries and island states have all been at odds over whether to commit to a first-ever agreement to address the fossil-fuel consumption driving climate change. Officials are almost a day past deadline, after negotiations plunged into acrimony.
They released a new draft agreement on Wednesday morning local time, which calls on nations to transition from fossil fuels “in a just, orderly and equitable manner” while “accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
The draft sets up a final vote that could happen later Wednesday, if enough parties signal their satisfaction.
Hours before the draft was released, delegates shuttled between meetings, with some showing optimism that a deal was within reach. U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry said that “there’s a lot of good faith on the table right now.” Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, expressed confidence the deal would put the world on a path to meeting the goal of the Paris agreement: limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The summit in Dubai, COP28, will end months of negotiations over whether to phase out or simply reduce fossil fuel consumption and production, a deal that would break new territory, but which vulnerable countries and U.S. officials have critiqued as watered down and too weak to stop the worst consequences of climate change.
Countries like China, India and Saudi Arabia have said the world isn’t ready to drastically reduce oil, gas and coal consumption, and Kerry and others have said failing to do so could ensure failure of the 2015 Paris accord. But even the United States is continuing to ramp up its production of oil.