The phase down of fossil fuels is "inevitable" as part of the energy transition, incoming president of the UN Cop 28 climate summit Sultan al-Jaber said yesterday, in a marked shift from his previous rhetoric on the topic.
At a side event of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks in Bonn, Germany, al-Jaber spoke of "ensuring a just and balanced energy transition… that promotes policies and investments that scale up renewable energy, while working towards an energy system that is free of unabated fossil fuels".
Al-Jaber, who will oversee Cop 28 in Dubai in December, has often spoken about scaling up renewable energy — in particular a goal to triple renewable energy capacity, double energy efficiency and double so-called clean hydrogen production by 2030. But he has not before now publicly acknowledged a declining role for fossil fuels, as the world moves to tackle climate change.
He said at the Petersberg climate dialogue last month in Germany that "the energies used today will continue to be part of the global energy mix for the foreseeable future". And while he has more than once noted the need to phase out fossil fuel emissions, he has not publicly linked emissions reduction to curbing fossil fuel use.
The final text from Cop 26 — held in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021 — was the first to mention fossil fuels in relation to climate, though it was limited to phasing out inefficient subsidies and a phase down of unabated coal power. The Cop 27 text, finalised in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022, simply repeated the previous year's, despite a concerted push from a group of 80 countries to include language around phasing down all fossil fuels.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) today welcomed al-Jaber's comments as a first step, but said multilateral discussions on the topic were needed at Cop 28. "It's a start but by no means the end," said E3G senior associate Alden Meyer. He called for "open, transparent and inclusive discussion on this issue in Dubai."
"The recognition of the inevitable decline of fossil fuel is notable… but… without a clear and ambitious timeline attached to it remains just a statement," said Greenpeace East Asia senior global policy adviser Li Shuo.
Al-Jaber is chief executive of the UAE's state-owned oil company Adnoc and chairman of the country's state-owned renewables company Masdar. Though his appointment as incoming Cop president has drawn criticism from some NGOs and climate activists, EU lead negotiator Frans Timmermans and US climate envoy John Kerry have endorsed it. The UNFCCC Bonn climate talks, which run until 15 June, mark a halfway point between Cops.
