The world must support last year's historic resolution to transition away from fossil fuels, the United Arab Emirates said, to intervene forcefully in the harmful fight over climate change.
The oil nation's stance was a sharp rebuke to its neighbor and close ally Saudi Arabia, which sought to walk away from global commitments at United Nations climate change talks in Azerbaijan this week.
Last year, the UAE hosted a major climate summit, Cop28, where efforts to transition away from fossil fuels were a key outcome. It was the first time the issue had been directly addressed at the climate conference, which has been held annually for nearly 30 years.
This requirement is contained in a document called the UAE Consensus. A UAE spokesperson told the Guardian: “The UAE Consensus is the culmination of a series of intense negotiations that demonstrated the value of multilateralism.
“As a police decision, it is unanimous by definition. All parties must respect what has been agreed. You need to concentrate. [new collective quantified goal on climate finance]. We urge all parties to focus on this outcome. ”
In this year's talks, Cop29, Saudi Arabia and its allies are seeking to reverse this commitment. They sought to put discussions on phasing out fossil fuels into separate, funded talks and refused to include this commitment in a key document.
Experts at the talks told the Guardian privately that the UAE's intervention in Saudi Arabia, a close ally and “brother country,” was critical.
After COP28, the UAE introduced a “Troika” system for UN officers, under which the three current, immediate and next host countries agreed to work together to ensure negotiations go smoothly. .
According to negotiating room insiders, Saudi Arabia has been extremely obstructive in these talks. The country's spokesperson told the police plenary session, meaning the “Conference of the Parties” under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that Saudi Arabia “will not accept any instrument that targets specific sectors, including fossil fuels. ” he said. ”.
Following the comments, Catherine McKenna, Canada's former climate minister and chair of the United Nations Group on Net-Zero Emissions Commitments, wrote on social media: We are in a fossil fuel climate crisis. Everyone in #Cop29, please do your best and see it through to the end. ”
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Cop29 in Azerbaijan is entering its final hours. In addition to reaffirming the transition away from fossil fuels, the summit will create a new global settlement on climate finance, funneling at least $1 trillion a year to developing countries and helping them reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to reduce emissions and help combat climate change. Impact of abnormal weather.
However, the meeting was mired in a quagmire of agony. How much climate finance will developed countries contribute to the New Joint Quantitative Targets from their budgets, and how much of the projected $1 trillion-plus will need to come from private sector investment? have not been confirmed yet.
Developing countries want most of their funding to come from public sources and in the form of grants rather than loans.
Former Irish president Mary Robinson, who twice served as UN climate envoy, told the Guardian that poor countries would have to compromise on the $300 billion figure likely to be provided by rich countries' budgets and multilateral development banks. He said it might not happen. such as the World Bank.
