The nearly 200 countries at COP28 have finally been presented with draft text by the UAE COP28 presidency, but the precise wording has left some questioning the real determination to stop climate change.

Key to the issue is the watering down from the expression for the "phase out of fossil fuels in line with the best available science” to one calls for countries to reduce “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner,” and that change has created considerable backlash, and not just from the more vulnerable countries, but also the US and most European countries.

So, the good news is that countries like Saudi Arabia have actively engaged in the conversation, the bad news is that they are not fully aligned with the majority, and under the rules all countries have to agree to the final text, and right now that hangs in the balance.

The 21-page text makes no mention of fossil fuel ‘phasedown’ or ‘phaseout’, which UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said was one of the keys to the conference’s success and which many nations have demanded.

Measures that did make it into the current draft include:

Tripling global capacity of renewable energy by 2030.
The rapid phasedown of “unabated coal” and curtailing the number of new licenses.
Zero and low emissions technologies, including removal technologies such as carbon capture, and utilization and storage.
Climate finance.
Targets on adaptation.

However, nowhere do the words “oil” and “natural gas” appear and likewise any mention of equitable support from rich countries is missing.

Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, told UN News that he was expecting the new text to be “much stronger, but the language on phaseout of fossil fuels is now completely gone … As civil society we reject the text.”

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