Countries Urged To Phase Out Fossil Fuels To Meet Paris Agreement

(Photo : Getty Images/Nhac Nguyen)

An effort to push for global action to phase out fossil fuels is gaining momentum ahead of a critical United Nations climate meeting in November.

According to the UN's first global stocktake of progress on the treaty, the world is dangerously off track in reaching the Paris climate deal's goals of decreasing carbon pollution and increasing financing for developing countries.

The 2015 Paris Agreement successfully drove climate action, but "much more is required now on all fronts," according to the report released on Friday, which will serve as the foundation for a major climate meeting in Dubai at the end of the year.

Meeting the goal

Meeting the targets will necessitate "phasing out all unabated fossil fuels," according to the report, an admission that some oil-producing countries may find difficult to accept.

The UN has not formally endorsed the need to phase out fossil fuels in previous rounds of climate talks, and rhetoric about "phasing out" or "phasing down" fossil fuels has sparked debate at the annual UN climate conference.

The report also stated that there is a "rapidly narrowing window" for countries to move faster, as global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest and then be rapidly decreased to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

However, emissions continue to rise, and there is a 20 to 23 gigatonne gap.

The global situation is characterized in broad and generic terms that were essentially predicted, as it has been evident for some time that the world is way off track to meet the more stringent of the Paris goals, which is to restrict temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Ani Dasgupta, head of the World Resources Institute think tank, highlighted that the report's bland tone concealed a catastrophic failure.

"The UN's polite prose glosses over what is a truly damning report card for global climate efforts," he added.

An attempt last year to add language on the phase-out of fossil fuels to the outcome of COP27 in Egypt failed.

New efforts have been undertaken this year, although the UAE has so far avoided inserting language on phasing out fossil fuel emissions in any COP28 discussions.

G20 actions

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed that G20 leaders have the ability to restart a "spinning out of control" climate disaster.

He said that the G20 countries are in control as they are responsible for 80 percent of the global emissions.

China, the United States, the European Union, and India alone account for more than half of all emissions.

"The climate crisis is worsening dramatically - but the collective response is lacking in ambition, credibility, and urgency," Guterres said in the Indian capital New Delhi, which chaired the G20 summit this weekend.

The report also emphasized the need to immediately and dramatically increase financial assistance to developing countries so that they can adjust to climate-exacerbated weather events that are already wreaking havoc on their economies.

Many African governments are attempting to move away from fossil fuels as their budgets are being drained by worsening droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms.

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