Some 80,000 delegates who had flown in from around the world to attend the COP28 climate talks in Dubai joined in the clapping and cheering Wednesday as a directive to begin the transition away from fossil fuels was issued at the U.N.-sponsored talks.
After 13 days of talks in a country known for its abundant oil wealth and spectacular profits derived from the same, the Emirati president of the COP28 summit quickly banged a gavel to signal consensus among 194 countries and the European Union for the end to fossil fuels across the planet.
The agreed headline agreement contained a provision that calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner … so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
“You did step up, you showed flexibility, you put common interest ahead of self-interest,” exhorted summit president Sultan Al Jaber, whose conflicting role as head of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company had drawn protests from climate activists.
Describing the deal as bringing “transformational change”, AFP reports Jaber said: “We have helped restore faith and trust in multilateralism, and we have shown that humanity can come together.”
“We have language on fossil fuel in our final agreement, for the first time ever,” he said, prompting vigorous applause and cheers inside the auditorium and outside.
E.U. climate chief Wopke Hoekstra called the agreement “long, long overdue”, saying it had taken nearly 30 years of climate meetings to “arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.”
Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, President of COP28, (M) and other participants at the conference applaud. ( Hannes P Albert/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Young activist stage the last protest in COP28 conference venue, Blue ZOne as COP28, UN Climate Change Conference comes to an end, in UNFCCC in Dubai Exhibition Center, United Arab Emirates on December 12, 2023. (Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Planning will now begin in earnest to set timelines and requirements for the world to stop using fossil fuels and move to so-called renewables.
There is also the matter of reparations to be further decided where wealthy nations will be required to send funds to poorer nations allegedly impacted by “climate change.”
A call for a host of taxes on the U.S. and European nations designed to transfer wealth to economies confronting “the cost of drought, floods and superstorms made worse by rising temperatures” was renewed last year at a U.N. climate conference in Germany.