The future of fossil fuels, the main cause of the increasingly severe climate crisis, is this year at the center of international negotiations that will culminate in December, at COP28.
The G20 expressed itself, last Saturday, deeply divided in relation to oil, deciding not to call for an exit from fossil fuels, but rather to support, for the first time, the tripling of renewable energies by 2030.
The G20’s commitment to renewable energies, reached at the New Delhi Summit, was seen as a “glimmer of hope” for some and a “minimum” for others, considering that the decision takes place three months before COP28, the 28th.
United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which will take place from November 30th to December 12th, in Dubai.
The future of fossil fuels, the main cause of the increasingly severe climate crisis, is this year at the center of international negotiations that will culminate in December at COP28.
An exit from fossil fuels without capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) is also considered “indispensable” by the first official review report on the Paris Agreement, published on Friday by the United Nations (UN).
The G7 – Germany , Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – have already approved this year the acceleration of the exit from fossil fuels, but without a defined timetable.
At the end of the G20 Summit, the group of countries that represents 80% of global emissions of greenhouse gases, the final declaration calls for “acceleration of efforts to reduce the consumption of electricity from coal”, which excludes gas and oil, and reaffirms the commitment to “reduce and rationalize, in the medium term, subsidies for inefficient use of fossil fuels”, as in other previous summits.
The G20, whose geopolitical disagreements are numerous, whether over Ukraine or over the rivalry between the United States and China, is also opposed over the future of oil, with big producers like Saudi Arabia very reluctant on the subject.
AFRICAN UNION
The G20 brings together the 19 most developed or emerging economies and the European Union. The African Union became part of the group since Saturday, and the name change to G21 has not yet been mentioned.
“Leaders agreed on the bare minimum, a repeat of the Bali G20’s 2022 commitment to progressively reduce coal,” said Lisa Fischer, an expert at the E3G group on climate change.
However, the G20 leaders meeting in New Delhi recognize that limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, the most ambitious objective of the Paris Agreement, “requires a rapid, strong and sustained reduction of emissions of 43% by 2030 compared to 2019”, according to the recommendations of the IPCC (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which points to a peak in emissions by 2025.
Although 2023 is on track to become the hottest year on record, “this G20 should show the way to a future without fossil fuels”, reacted Friederike Roder, vice-president of the NGO Global Citizen, denouncing “a very bad sign for the world”.
The reduction of fossil fuels is one of the COP28 president’s ambitions: Sultan Al Jaber himself, at the same time head of the UAE’s national oil company – ADNOC, considered its sharp reduction “inevitable and essential”, once built, however, the clean energy system of the future.
On this subject, the G20 states, for the first time, that it “will continue and encourage efforts to triple renewable energy capacities” by 2030, a goal that should reach consensus at COP28.
“This is a significant and surprising step by the G20,” said Ember Group’s Aditya Lolla, hailing “a major turnaround from Saudi Arabia and Russia.”
