Egypt's special representative to the Cop 27 UN climate summit, Wael Aboulmagd, said a cover document with "more detailed language" will come out later today, leaving the door open for the inclusion of fossil fuels-related language.
The first draft, released late on 14 November, was a "a list of general elements", intended to be general to allow for parties to fill in what they see fit, Aboulmagd said. "The issue of fossil fuel can come up" in later drafts, he said. "We put the list out and heard from a number of countries their view and that is what we are working on now and will continue to work until we come back with a copy with detailed language."
Coal and fossil fuels in general were notably absent from the initial document, described as a 'non-paper' by the UNFCCC. Last year's agreement at Cop 26 called on countries to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and phase down unabated coal power. No cover text of a Cop summit had ever mentioned specific energy sources before.
India has called for the phasing down of fossil fuel use as part of a Cop 27 deal, a suggestion supported by the EU. Being the world's second-biggest buyer of coal, India's motivation may be to move away from the language agreed on at Cop 26.
For the EU, India's suggestion aligns with European calls to strengthen climate ambitions. "We are in support of any call to phase down all fossil fuels," European Commission executive vice-president Frans Timmermans said on 15 November. "But we also have to make sure that this call does not diminish the earlier agreements we had on phasing down coal, so if it comes on top of what we already agreed in Glasgow, then the EU will support in this proposal," he added.
France's climate ambassador Stephane Crouzat also called today for countries to push for the inclusion of fossil fuels in the final Cop 27 text, saying that fossil fuel reserves have to stay in the ground to keep the 1.5 °C global warming target alive. India's suggestion of phasing down fossil fuels generally, as opposed to focusing on coal only, is an idea "I think we should take them up on", Crouzat said.
India's move was also welcomed by the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (Boga), of which France is a member. Dan Jorgensen, the climate and energy and public utilities minister of Denmark, Boga's founding member, said the current energy crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shown that a swift transition away from oil and gas is "more important than ever".
