The phase-down of unabated fossil fuels will be part of the UN Cop 28 climate summit discussions at the end of this year, although their outcome remains uncertain, Denmark's climate minister Dan Jorgensen said today.
This year's climate summit will be "the most important Cop since Paris" as the climate crisis is "on the brink of spinning out of control", Jorgensen said at the first political high-level climate ministerial since Cop 27 in Copenhagen today.
The meeting was held to kick-start discussions ahead of Cop 28 in Dubai and to lay the groundwork for the outcome of the negotiations in December.
Jorgensen said that no parties at the meeting disputed the need to reduce emissions by 2030 to deliver on the 1.5°C limit goal, but that there remain "particular areas of concern". The 2015 Paris climate agreement calls for global warming to stay "well below" a 2°C rise in pre-industrial temperatures and ideally limit it to a 1.5°C rise.
Current concerns include setting more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) — countries' climate pledges — to reduce national emissions. Updating NDCs was a sticking point in the Cop 27 negotiations, although the Cop 26 Glasgow pact requested for all countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 commitments by 2022.
Agreeing on the phase-down of unabated fossil fuels as well as increasing installed renewable energy capacity, is also an area of concern, according to Jorgensen. Last year's Cop text made no mention of additional curbs to fossil fuels, but reiterated the need to accelerate efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.
EU foreign ministers have since updated their external policy position on the energy transition and are now calling for a global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, but with a transitional role for natural gas. The IPCC defines unabated fossil fuels as fossil fuels produced and used "without interventions" that substantially reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted throughout the life cycle — for example, capturing 90pc or more CO2 from power plants, or 50–80pc of fugitive methane emissions from energy supply.
Cop 27 president and Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry agreed that there was a "general recognition of reducing the reliance on fossil fuels" during the meeting in Copenhagen and noted that this would be part of the consultations. The Cop 27 presidency and the Cop 28 incoming presidency are holding informal consultations ahead of the next talks taking place in Dubai at the end of this year, at ministerial, head of delegation and technical levels.
According to Jorgensen, European countries at the meeting argued that the EU's common emission reduction target of 55pc by 2030 should be raised — a policy change already put in motion last year and which is yet to be implemented. European Commission executive vice-president Frans Timmermans said yesterday that as soon as negotiations on the EU's Fit-for-55 plan are final, the bloc will update its NDC.
In addition, Jorgensen also highlighted the need to increase funding arrangements for adaption finance, the loss and damage fund and the mobilisation of the $100bn/yr climate finance target, which has so far not been met.
"Much more needs to be done" to put in operation the outcomes of the Cop 27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh Shoukry said, while current measures are "clearly off track" to limit a global rise in temperatures, pointing at the results of the synthesis report of the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) released yesterday.
