European nations join island states in calling for fossil fuel phase-out

PARIS – An influential alliance including several European countries and Pacific island states backed the global phase out of fossil fuels, potentially pitting them against fossil fuel-dependent countries in what is set to be a central debate at the COP28 climate summit in 2023. 

The High Ambition Coalition – which counts the Marshall Islands, Austria and France among its members – called for a decline in fossil fuel production and use.

The nations also said a decision at the summit should include ending both new coal production and the expansion of existing mines, as well as reducing methane emissions to near zero.

The coalition was formed in the run-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement by the late Mr Tony de Brum, the chief negotiator for the Marshall Islands and a prominent climate campaigner who was instrumental in securing the agreement.

The United States and members of the European Union have often clashed with developing countries – notably China – over the steps needed to curb climate change, as the latter group has not had the benefit of more than a century of unfettered industrialisation.

Washington did not sign a statement from the coalition.

Whether they can find common ground will determine the outcome of the upcoming United Nations Conference of the Parties, known as COP28, in Dubai.

A key component of the summit is the Global Stocktake, where countries tally how close they are to the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 deg C – and ideally chart what needs to be done to close the gap. 

“Fossil fuels are at the root of this crisis,” the High Ambition Coalition said in a statement.

“We must phase out all international public finance for fossil fuel development and power generation.”

The alliance said governments must demand that oil, gas and coal producers publish “trackable transition plans that set out how they’ll cut emissions by 2025, and reach net-zero by 2050”.

Crucially, countries also laid out a narrow vision for how so-called abatement technologies like carbon capture and storage should be used during the transition.

They only have “a minor role to play” and should “not be used to delay climate action”, the coalition said. The language is stronger than the EU’s negotiation mandate agreed earlier in October.

COP28 takes place from Nov 30 to Dec 12, and the run-up has already been marred by growing geopolitical tensions, with the Israel-Hamas war coming on top of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Climate negotiations have also stalled amid disputes over the extent to which fossil fuels should be phased out and how to establish a fund to cover the losses and damages caused by increasingly extreme weather.

Talks on the latter will enter a fifth round later this week, amid hopes of a breakthrough before the summit.

Ireland’s Climate Minister Eamon Ryan, who negotiates so-called loss and damage for the EU, said progress had been made during a pre-COP meeting of ministers and that negotiators were 85 per cent of the way to securing a deal.

“There’s not a huge ideological divide,” Mr Ryan said in an interview.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t get a broadly agreed text.”

The world needs to reach peak emissions by 2025 and reduce them by nearly 45 per cent by the end of the decade in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The International Energy Agency has said global demand for oil will reach its maximum this decade, but that does not mean a rapid plunge in consumption is imminent.

Phasing out fossil fuels is “the single most important course correction we can make”, said Mr Ralph Regenvanu, Climate Minister for Vanuatu, a volcanic atoll in the South Pacific.

But “I feel pessimistic about the Global Stocktake”. BLOOMBERG