COP28 leader urges nations to get out of 'comfort zones'

[December 08, 2023]  By Valerie Volcovici, Gloria Dickie and David Stanway

DUBAI (Reuters) -COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber urged countries on Friday to get out of their comfort zones and work together to reach agreement on a new global deal to fight climate change before the two-week summit ends.

"Let's please get this job done," he said, opening a plenary session as the summit entered its toughest phase of negotiations.

With five days left before the conference's scheduled end on Dec. 12, country ministers were joining the discussions.

"I need you to step up, and I need you to come out of your comfort zones," Jaber said.

Still unresolved is how the nearly 200 countries at COP28 will handle the issue of fossil fuels, the main source of climate-warming emissions. At least 80 countries are demanding a COP28 agreement that calls for an eventual end to fossil fuel use.

Such a position would be unprecedented, after three decades of U.N. climate summits that have never addressed the future role of fossil fuels head on.

"I'm confident we have to leave Dubai and COP28 with some language on fossil fuels," Canadian environment minister Steven Guilbeault said. "Even if it's not as ambitious as some would want, it will still be an historic moment."

Some countries with economies that rely on fossil fuels are still resisting any mention of them, negotiators said.

France's climate ambassador Stephane Crouzat said the biggest obstacle was that some, such as Saudi Arabia, feel they can go on producing and using fossil fuels while using carbon capture technologies, which remain expensive and have yet to be scaled up.

"We feel it's just not realistic," Crouzat told Reuters.

On Friday, negotiators were still considering multiple options, including a call for a fossil fuel phase-out to be led by wealthy countries as they have already been exploiting their resources for decades.

United Arab Emirates Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber speaks during a press conference at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 4, 2023. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani/File photo

"We do not deny the impact of climate change, but every country cannot be put on the same standard when it comes to the transition," Malaysian Climate Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad told Reuters on Friday.

"Being both a developing country as well as oil and gas producer, we believe that any phase-out must be gradual and fair to the developing world."

The U.N. climate agency's chief made an impassioned plea, reminding countries that the science behind the world's goal of holding warming to within 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial temperatures is clear.

"From the planet's perspective 1.5 is a tangible limit. It is not simply a choice," said Simon Stiell, a Grenadian national who is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"Pass 1.5 degrees and we're likely to irreversibly lose ice sheets" and 10 meters of sea level rise, the demise of coral reefs that sustain the world's fisheries, and temperatures so extreme that "2 billion people will live in areas ... beyond the human limit and are a threat to life," he said.

Meanwhile, eastern European countries are working to resolve an impasse over where to hold next year's COP29 summit after Russia said it would block any EU member as COP president.

As of Friday, diplomats said Azerbaijan was likely to win in its bid to host the event. Bulgaria and Moldova have also offered to take on the rotating presidency.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Gloria Dickie, David Stanway, William James, Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Katy Daigle, Gerry Doyle and Barbara Lewis, Kirsten Donovan)

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