The host of the COP30 conference in Brazil urged countries to unite for a deal to strengthen international climate efforts yesterday, as a showdown loomed in the summit’s final hours over whether the accord should set the world on a clearer path away from fossil fuels.
“This cannot be an agenda that divides us,” COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago told delegates in a public plenary session before releasing them for further negotiations.
“We must reach an agreement between us.”
The rift over the future of oil, gas and coal underscored the difficulties of landing a consensus agreement at the annual conference, which serves as a perennial test of global resolve to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
A draft text for a deal, released by summit host Brazil before dawn, contained no reference to fossil fuels, dropping entirely a range of options on the subject that had been included in an earlier version.
Scores of countries, including major oil and gas producer nations, had called the options unacceptable, while some 80 governments had come out in support of them.
The burning of fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases that are by far the largest contributors to global warming.
That standoff between the two groups continued last night, leaving the talks deadlocked for now.
Panama negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey told a Press conference that leaving fossil fuels out of the COP30 deal risked turning the talks into a “clown show”.
“Failing to name the causes of the climate crisis is not compromise. It is denial,” he said.
Three sources said the Arab Group negotiating bloc, whose 22 members include Saudi Arabia and the UAE, told a closed-doors meeting where nations were attempting to thrash out a compromise that its energy industries were off limits in discussions.
In a statement delivered by Saudi Arabia, the group warned that targeting its industries would collapse the negotiations, the sources said.
The two-week conference in the Amazon city of Belem had been scheduled to end late last night but, like previous COP summits, looked set to blow past that deadline and continue this morning.
A deal text would need approval by consensus among the nearly 200 countries present in order to be adopted.
The US has declined to send an official delegation this year under President Donald Trump, who has called global warming a hoax.
Corrêa do Lago said the exit of the world’s largest economy meant uniting around COP30 was crucial to ensure the multilateral process survives.
“The world is watching,” he said.
Dozens of nations have been pushing hard for a “roadmap” laying out how countries should follow through with a promise made at COP28 two years ago to move away from oil, gas and coal.
The European Union’s commissioner for climate, Wopke Hoekstra, said in a statement delivered during consultations that the issue was important for building on past commitments to slash emissions.
“We need to make sure that the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy is real and in the text,” he said.
A Brazilian negotiator told Reuters the fossil fuel language was unlikely to be reintroduced, and that the summit presidency was pressing for only small adjustments to the existing draft.
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