The climate summit of the UN (COP28) held in Dubai will focus from today on negotiating an agreement with which stop the climate crisis and global warmingwith the sensitive issue of phasing out fossil fuels being the issue on which the parties are furthest apart.
In these last 48 hours of the 28th edition of the climate summit It is only negotiated, after the organization has decided to reserve the last two official days of the meeting to debate the final resolution.
There are no talks, conferences, round tables, or high-level meetings in the blue zone reserved for delegations and organizations officially accredited to the climate meeting, although reports will be presented and there will be press conferences.
The national and organizational pavilions spread throughout the Expo 2020 Dubai site will be in the hands of officials busy analyzing and polishing texts while chief negotiators exchange bilateral, group and plenary meetings.
An ambitious agreement on the abandonment of fossil fuels
In recent hours the tone of the public statements of all those involved has hardened noticeably regarding the possibility of Dubai leaving with a “special and unprecedented” climate agreementas the president of COP28 said just two days ago, Sultan al Jaberat the beginning of the final week of deliberations.
Al Yaber then asserted that his agreement proposals were receiving “positive responses” and predicted that they would be achieved. in this COP28 a “result that is as ambitious as possible” in his language relating to abandonment of fossil fuels, one of the central issues of the climate debate.
There are more disagreements than consensus
This Sunday the tone became more bitter and acknowledged that “there are more areas of dissent than agreement,” so he urged everyone to work “faster, harder” and be “flexible.”
And during this same day, Al Jaber announced a change in the dynamics of the meeting to seat ministers and heads of mission “under one roof”, and in a circle, to “find meeting points and accelerate the negotiation.”
Al Jaber asked the negotiators to go to that meeting “prepared with solutionsprepared for be flexible and accept commitments”, and without prepared statements or predetermined positions.
The end of fossil fuels?
That was only confirming the uncertainty that weighs on whether the climate meeting will finally close with a clear message about the end -or the beginning of the end- of the fossil fuelsone of the central topics of the climate debate and, without a doubt, the one that has attracted the most attention at this Dubai summit.
The European Union, the United States and many developing countries and island states maintain that it is a statement to that effect is essential; China, Russia, India or Saudi Arabia, quite the opposite.
In this framework, the meeting awaits hours of negotiations behind closed doors and “circles” of ministers, as well as specific press conferences, “off the record” meetings and other media actions in which the parties will vent their frustrations and try to establish lines of discussion inside and outside the rooms.
Environmentalists and “lobbyists” from the private sector, very numerous in Dubai, will also press their messages, which have been gaining strength and determination in recent hours. There will also be draft agreements that will be scrutinized by everyone present at the meeting, literally down to the last comma.
