UAE says seeking ‘consensus’ with next climate deal draft

The United Arab Emirates, host of the COP28 climate summit, said Tuesday it would seek consensus with a new draft deal after wide criticism of language on fossil fuels.

Majid Al Suwaidi, COP28 director general, played down the attacks on the text released Monday, saying the Emirati hosts were testing countries’ “red lines” and were working on another draft.

“We need to work on how we put their views into the text in a way that everybody can be happy with, and that we can move forward to achieving the goals” of checking warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, he told reporters.

“I think that what happened with our text was really that we were on it having honest, practical, pragmatic conversations about where people’s red lines really were,” he said.

“The point is to get a consensus.”

Under the rules of the UN climate convention, agreements need consensus of all participants — nearly 200 countries.

Saudi Arabia has led the charge against calls backed by vulnerable nations and Western powers to phase out oil, gas and coal, the biggest culprit in the planet’s climate crisis.

“We’ve known for a long time that the language around fossil fuels is complicated,” he said.

“There are those who want phase-out, there are those who want phase-down. There are those who want different formulations,” he said.

“The point is to get a consensus, and we don’t want one formulation that causes blockages in the process.”

Negotiators are already working past a deadline set by the Emiratis to complete work by the 13-day conference’s official close at 11 am (0700 GMT) on Tuesday.

“We all would like to finish on time, but we all want to get the most ambitious outcome possible. That’s our singular goal,” Suwaidi said. (BSS/AFP)