DThe World Climate Conference in Dubai calls on the world’s countries to address the transition away from “fossil energy sources in energy systems”. In the final plenary session, the conference adopted a central document according to which the transformation should take place in a “fair, orderly manner”. Efforts must be accelerated in this “crucial decade” to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality in 2050, the resolution says.
The president of the climate conference, Sultan al-Jaber, praised the decision as historic. “We have delivered,” he shouted to the delegations, who stood applauding after the decision. “For the first time ever, we have a consensus on the future of fossil fuels,” al-Jaber said.
A few minutes later, however, Samoa spoke up. While al-Jaber approved the document with a hammer blow, the representatives of the Alliance of Small Island States were not even in the room. “I’m confused about what’s happening here.” The alliance has serious concerns that the text is not sufficient. After her intervention, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stood up and applauded with many of the delegates from Samoa.
Saudi Arabia blocked for a long time
The previously passed resolution states that a “significant, rapid and sustainable” reduction in emissions is necessary. In order to achieve this, the capacity of renewable energies worldwide should be tripled by 2030. In addition, energy efficiency is expected to improve twice as fast every year as before. The draft also calls for increased reliance on other zero- or low-emission technologies. In addition to renewables, nuclear power, hydrogen and technologies for capturing and storing CO₂ are also mentioned. The document is intended as a response to the so-called global inventory of the climate conference. This showed that the world is currently not on track to limit the rise in temperature as planned.
In the past two weeks in Dubai, more than 100 countries called for a fundamental exit from fossil fuels, including Germany and the EU. Saudi Arabia, among others, blocked all formulations that went in this direction for a long time. After the climate conference was extended for a day, the Emirati hosts presented the compromise on Wednesday morning. The German delegation praised the decision. There is great joy “that the world has decided to end the fossil age,” it was said.