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Several major oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, are pushing back against talks on an agreement at the upcoming COP29 climate summit to mitigate the use of fossil fuels, negotiators from Western countries told the Financial Times.
The group of oil-rich nations, which include Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Bolivia, are hindering efforts for talks on the phase down of fossil fuels. COP29 will be held in November in Azerbaijan, which is highly dependent on oil and gas sales for its economic growth.
The previous climate summit, COP28, which ran one day into extra time amid heated debates on the future of fossil fuel use and production, ended with a compromise text referencing for the first time a call to all parties to transition away from fossil fuels.
The summit host, the United Arab Emirates, which is also one of OPEC’s top producers and exporters, hailed “the UAE consensus” as a historic deal to reduce emissions.
The final text adopted by the countries references for the first time in such summit declarations an explicit call for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
But the final agreement was watered down compared to any references to phasing out or phasing down of fossil fuels, as objections from many oil exporting countries – led by Saudi Arabia – held back talks in the final days and sent the conference into overtime.
The Conference of the Parties “Further recognizes the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5 °C pathways and calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches,” reads the text adopted last year.
Saudi Arabia and its state oil giant Aramco have repeatedly said that the focus of the energy sector and the debates should be on how to cut emissions, not on reducing oil and gas production.
