Diplomats Weigh Truce on Fossil Fuel Exit Plan at UN Climate Talks
(Bloomberg) -- International climate negotiators were weighing a potential compromise deal late Friday on establishing a formal plan for fulfilling a landmark two-year-old promise to shift the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels.
Representatives from key negotiating blocs were huddling behind closed doors at the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belém over a proposal that would create a work program to build a framework around the pledge for a just and orderly transition away from oil, gas and coal, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because deliberations were private.
The proposal — developed with the so-called High Ambition Coalition of countries seeking more aggressive action to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and global temperature increases — was designed as a possible compromise after Brazilian officials running COP30 omitted any plan for a fossil fuel road map from a draft proposal earlier Friday.
Roughly 80 countries have implored Brazilian officials presiding over the United Nations conference to include some kind of formal process for developing a road map away from fossil fuels, building on the commitment made by nearly 200 nations at COP28 in 2023.
The last-minute huddles taking place on the final formal day of the Belém summit were seen potentially setting up a key headline agreement after two weeks of negotiations on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.
Representatives from Arab nations and Russia raised objections during a closed-door meeting to discuss the draft text, according to people familiar with those talks. Later in the evening, however, Arab group representatives signaled their possible willingness to accept the compromise, one of the people said.
Some negotiators said they still remained far from a final broad consensus deal. European officials dug in over the need to add language on fossil fuels as talks dragged into the night, even amid signs of other groups wavering.
At around 9:50 p.m. local time, several negotiators walked out of the room where talks were being held. Czech Environment Minister Petr Hladík said the deadlock continued as European nations pushed for language on phasing out fossil fuels.
“It’s not possible to have less ambition than we had 10 years ago,” he said before heading to dinner. “We want to show the steps for moving away from fossil fuels.”
Energy and environment ministers from around the globe also have been wrestling with other difficult questions about the intersection of climate and trade policy as well as how to boost the amount of finance available to help countries adapt to the rising seas, more intense storms and punishing droughts driven by a warming world.
Some delegates were also frustrated over the omission of any language to chart a plan for preserving forests. It wasn’t immediately clear Friday evening how differences over any of those issues would be resolved. Negotiators inside the room were going through the text surgically considering changes, said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama’s special representative for climate change.
Many of the negotiators were due to leave the talks in coming hours, and some delegates were set to be kicked out of cruise ships moored in Belém as temporary lodging for the talks, further intensifying the last-minute push for a deal.
Friday began with the Brazilian COP30 presidency unveiling a draft proposal that provoked anger among some delegates who said it fell far short of the ambition needed to keep global temperatures in check.
Colombia’s environment minister, Irene Vélez Torres, said there was a bid to forge a compromise that would allow the COP president to lead road map initiatives on both deforestation and the fossil fuel transition. Those initiatives “could be taken or led by the presidency of the COP,” who would then “take that to the next COP,” she said, following a meeting on the plan.
Ed Miliband, the UK’s secretary of state for energy and climate change, said road map supporters are considering an array of options.
“We’re looking at all of the creative ways that can happen,” he told reporters. “We’re going to keep pushing, keep working with our allies, to try to make this happen.”
(Updates with comment from Czech environment minister in eighth paragraph.)
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