Oil Producers water down provision on Fossil Fuel Phase-out

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Why in the News?
• Background (Context)
• Reactions on the Draft Text ‘Global Goal on Adaptation’

Background

• From 30^th Nov to 12^th Dec 2023, the Government of the United Arab Emirates is hosting the 28^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• Negotiators at the climate meeting on 10^th Dec took a small first step on initiating greater action on adaptation to climate change.
• A draft text on identifying some “global goals” on adaptation emerged for the first time and countries agreed to use this as a starting point to negotiate for a more meaningful outcome on this track.
  • On other subjects, including the contentious issue of fossil fuel phase-out, negotiators were still engaged in informal discussions to look for common ground.
• The draft text is titled as ‘Global Goal on Adaptation’.
• GGA is an attempt to identify a common global goal on adaptation, just like keeping temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is a global goal on mitigation.
• It has been a long pending-demand of the developing countries, primarily to ensure more focus and resource mobilisation on adaptation.
• In the draft document, ‘phasing out’ of fossil fuel has been edited out.
• However there’s stronger language against coal with a recommendation to “rapidly phase down unabated coal,” that countries such as India, Indonesia and China – major consumers of coal power and developing countries at that – could find objectionable.

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Reactions on the Draft Text ‘Global Goal on Adaptation’

• The draft agreement text was immediately rejected by the European Union (EU) and some small island states.
• The EU climate commissioner said that, overall, it is clearly insufficient and not adequate to address the problem of climate change.
• The main disappointment was over the dilution of a provision regarding the use of fossil fuels.
• The draft called upon countries to “reduce both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.
• Fossil fuels, which account for nearly 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, have never been mentioned in any COP decision earlier.
  • These decisions would only talk about the need to reduce emissions, but kept away from saying what needed to be done to reduce these emissions.
• COP28 is the first time that a fossil fuel phase-out was discussed in formal negotiations.
• However, efforts to include a strong provision on this in the agreement has been meeting stiff resistance from oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia.
• India did not react to the draft agreement, but has been making it clear that attempts to single out coal for accelerated reduction was discriminatory.

Q1) What is the difference between Adaptation & Mitigation?

In essence, adaptation can be understood as the process of adjusting to the current and future effects of climate change. Mitigation means making the impacts of climate change less severe by preventing or reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere.

Q2) What is the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities? 

Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), principle of international environmental law establishing that all states are responsible for addressing global environmental destruction yet not equally responsible.

Source: Draft of climate pact waters down ‘phase out’ of fossil fuel, seeks “rapid” decline in coal use | Indian Express