EU commits to pushing for global fossil fuel phaseout ahead of Cop28 summit


Stuti Mishra
Fri, 10 March 2023

The European Union (EU) has agreed to support a worldwide push for phasing out fossil fuels in a bid to tackle the growing threat of climate crisis ahead of the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai later this year.

Ministers from the 27 EU member states approved a text on their diplomatic priorities ahead of the conference, where almost 200 countries will be present to strengthen their efforts towards limiting global warming.

“The shift towards a climate-neutral economy will require the global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels,” the EU text said, citing the scientific consensus that this is necessary to avoid a more severe climate crisis, Reuters news agency reported.

“The EU will systematically promote and call for a global move towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels well ahead of 2050,” it said, adding that global fossil fuel consumption should peak in the near term.

The shift towards a climate-neutral economy, the EU text said, would require a worldwide phase-out of unabated fossil fuels.

This decision comes after countries failed to agree on a push to phase out fossil fuels at last year’s climate summit in Egypt.

More than 80 countries, including the EU, supported an Indian proposal to do this at last year’s summit, provided the earlier agreed-upon pace of coal phase-down is not slowed. But Saudi Arabia and other oil and gas-rich nations opposed it.

Many other nations also backed the proposal, including 39 countries of the Alliance of Small Island States, seriously threatened by the rise in temperatures and sea levels.

There’s hope that this year’s Cop28 summit, starting on 30 November in UAE, could clinch a global deal on phasing out all Co2-emitting fossil fuels - not only coal, as agreed at previous UN climate talks, but also oil and gas.

Europe is currently transforming its energy system to meet climate targets and end decades of reliance on Russian fossil fuels. The EU text said countries should combine the two aims and use renewable energy or energy savings - rather than fossil fuels - to replace Russian energy.

“There is no need for a one-to-one replacement of former Russian natural gas import volumes,” it said.

EU countries approved their climate text two weeks later than planned, owing to a spat among countries over whether it should promote nuclear energy.

The final version scrubbed some wording that countries had disagreed on but said that alongside renewable energy, EU diplomacy will promote sustainable “low-carbon technologies” - a phrase that often refers to nuclear energy.

As climate crisis continues to be a pressing issue, it is hoped that the commitment made by the EU to promote a global fossil fuel phaseout will set the ball rolling for the global deal this year to include in the text.

While coal is considered the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, it is also the cheapest and most abundantly available energy source for developing countries like India which still has a long way ahead to provide cheaper electricity to their population. While India has made strides in renewable growth and aims to increase its share by half by 2030, it often comes under fire for its coal usage.

The move to get all fossil fuels mentioned in the global climate deal was considered a diplomatic offensive by India at the UN climate summit in Egypt and aimed to put the spotlight on oil and gas-producing nations, mostly developed countries like the US and the EU, instead of singling out coal.

The EU’s move towards a global phase-out of fossil fuels is seen as significant as the bloc’s carbon emissions makeup approximately 18 per cent of global historic greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Commission plans to increase the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to 55 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030, which will require significant changes in the way people heat their homes, travel, and produce food.