DOHA: Opec’s top Arab energy ministers arrived in Doha on Monday (Dec 11) for the 12th Arab Energy Conference as countries clash at the UN’s COP28 climate summit over a possible agreement to phase-out fossil fuels.
Opec Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais in a letter dated Dec 6 and seen by Reuters urged Opec members to reject any COP28 deal which targets fossil fuels rather than emissions.
Countries in Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) hold about 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves, most of which is concentrated among Middle Eastern members.
For the majority of those countries, oil revenue is the main source of income, so any message from COP28 aimed at slashing oil and gas demand becomes a question of survival.
Ministers from Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Libya and non-Opec member Oman arrived for the energy meeting, as well as Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman who had been in Dubai for the UN climate summit.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei was absent.
The UAE, the second Arab country to host the climate summit after Egypt in 2022 and an Opec member, has alongside other Gulf energy producers called for what they consider a more realistic energy transition in which fossil fuels retain a role in securing energy supply while industries decarbonise.
Sultan Al Jaber, who is chief of UAE state oil giant Adnoc and president of COP28, has maintained that a phase down of fossil fuels is inevitable and essential, but is part of a transition that takes into account the circumstances of each country and region.
Saudi Arabia, the de-facto leader of Opec, and top ally Russia are among several countries insisting that the COP28 conference in Dubai targets emissions, rather than the fossil fuels causing them, according to observers in the negotiations.
Qatar, which left Opec in 2018, but whose position is largely aligned with other oil and gas producing nations, said that it had invested tens of billions of dollars in its liquefied natural gas industry, even when many doubted the feasibility of such investments.
“Our decision at the time was based on a realistic understanding of market fundamentals and efforts to reduce global carbon emissions,” Saad al-Kaabi, the head of Qatar’s state-run energy company, told the conference.
At least 80 countries including the US, the European Union (EU) and many poor, climate-vulnerable nations are demanding that a COP28 deal call clearly for an eventual end to fossil fuel use.
“Kuwait works according to a policy based on preserving the sources of petroleum wealth and their optimal exploitation and development,” Oil Minister Saad Al Barrak said, adding that oil was a primary source energy for Kuwait and the rest of the world.
Kuwait reaffirmed its rejection for the inclusion of any call for phasing out fossil fuels consumption and production in the COP28 draft final climate deal, he later said in remarks to Kuwait's state news agency. However, the minister said his country deeply believes in the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to protect environment.
Like Kaabi, Barrak also spoke of the importance of investing in order to increase production capacity for fossil fuel-based energy resources.
In a related development, a draft of a potential climate deal at the COP28 summit on Monday suggested a range of measures countries could take to slash greenhouse gas emissions, but omitted the “phase out” of fossil fuels many nations have demanded – drawing criticism from the US, the EU and climate-vulnerable countries.
The draft has set the stage for contentious last-minute negotiations in the two-week summit in Dubai, which has laid bare deep international divisions over whether oil, gas and coal should have a place in a climate-friendly future.
The new draft of a COP28 agreement, published by the UAE’ presidency of the summit, proposed various options but did not refer to a “phase out” of fossil fuels.
Instead, it listed eight options that countries could use to cut emissions, including: “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050”.
Other actions listed included tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, “rapidly phasing down unabated coal” and scaling up technologies including those to capture CO2 emissions to keep them from the atmosphere.
Despite the fact emissions from burning fossil fuels are by far the main driver of climate change, 30 years' worth of international climate negotiations have never resulted in a global agreement to cut their use.
The text triggered a protest from dozens of delegates who stood in near silence, holding hands and lining the long route into a room where negotiators gathered, forcing them to run an eerie gauntlet before getting back to work.
“Please give us a good text,” one delegate pleaded as negotiators filed in.
US Special Climate Envoy John Kerry told the meeting, which ran for around three hours, that the draft agreement had to be strengthened.
“We’re not where we’re meant to be in terms of the text,” Kerry said. “Many of us have called for the world to largely phase out fossil fuels, and that starts with a critical reduction this decade.”
Speaking with voice worn hoarse by the summit, he said the outcome of COP28 was existential: “This is a war for survival”.
EU chief negotiator Wopke Hoekstra told reporters the draft was “clearly insufficient and not adequate to addressing the problem we are here to address.”
Representatives from Pacific Island nations Samoa and the Marshall Islands, already suffering the impacts of rising seas, said the draft was a death sentence.
“We will not go silently to our watery graves,” said John Silk, the head of the Marshall Islands delegation.
“We cannot sign on to a text that does not have strong commitment on phasing out fossil fuels,“ Samoa environment minister Cedric Schuster told reporters.
Dan Jorgensen, the Danish climate minister, said he believed many countries opposed the current text. “So, it was clear that this is only the starting point and that we are not even close to getting a result.”
A new draft document is expected early on Tuesday, which would leave little time for further disagreement ahead of the conference's scheduled close. COP summits rarely finish on schedule. – Reuters
