Five dry words — “transitioning away from fossil fuels” — led to a bitter diplomatic spat Tuesday.
A handful of petrostates, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, ensured that a United Nations General Assembly resolution on climate change steered clear of such language, despite established scientific consensus that the continued burning of coal, oil and gas is rapidly heating up the planet.
It demonstrates how a handful of countries, with their own economic and political interests, can stymie global action on slowing down dangerous levels of global warming.
The General Assembly resolution is not binding. But words carry meaning and precedence in diplomacy. And the fight to excise that critical phrase on a transition from fossil fuels is part of a concerted yearlong diplomatic campaign by Saudi Arabia to make countries distance themselves from a commitment made last year at the global climate talks in Dubai to move away from oil, gas and coal.
The commitment, made at the COP28 climate talks last December, was vague on how to make such a transition. But it was the first time that such an explicit mention of decarbonizing the world’s energy system was included in an international agreement. It opened the door to including similar language in subsequent agreements, such as the resolution that diplomats had been negotiating for weeks at the General Assembly in New York.
The European Union proposed an amendment that mirrored the COP28 agreement. It included a goal of tripling renewable energy capacity, doubling energy efficiency, and “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”
That amendment failed when it was put to a vote.
Saudi Arabia said it lacked “balance.” Russia called it “cherry-picking” from the broader COP28 deal.
Fiji summed up the position of those in support of phasing out fossil fuels by saying, simply, “We need to be guided by science.”
The resolution on the “protection of global climate for present and future generations of humankind” is an annual exercise, aimed at putting the General Assembly’s stamp of approval on the previous round of climate talks.
Science notwithstanding, the triumph of fossil fuels is evident in the real world. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have increased from 2023 and are projected to reach a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, according to new data from the Global Carbon Project.
Saudi Arabia has successfully opposed including similar fossil fuel transition language in some other international declarations, including at a United Nations-led biodiversity summit. But Saudi officials did not prevail in nixing fossil fuel transition language in the agreement reached at the COP29 climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, earlier this month.
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