{"id":403293,"date":"2023-12-11T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403293"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Observers-see-OPEC-panicking-as-climate-talks-focus-on-possible-fossil-fuel-phase-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Observers-see-OPEC-panicking-as-climate-talks-focus-on-possible-fossil-fuel-phase-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Observers see OPEC ‘panicking’ as climate talks focus on possible fossil fuel phase-out"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates<\/strong> (AP)\u2014Veteran negotiators at the United Nations climate talks Saturday said that the push to wean the world from dirty fossil fuels had gained so much momentum that they had poked a powerful enemy: the oil industry.<\/p>\n

Late Friday, multiple news sources reported that the leader of OPEC, the powerful oil cartel, wrote to member countries earlier this week urging them to block any language that would phase out or phase down fossil fuels. The news had the effect of a thunderclap, shining a light on host and petrostate United Arab Emirates, which clearly has oil interests but also wants to show the world that it can lead the conference toward a substantive result.<\/p>\n

Environmental activists, still smarting after decades of soft power from oil interests keeping such discussions from seeing the light of day, smirked at signs that the mighty cartel was circling the wagons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re panicking,\u201d said Alden Meyer, an analyst with climate think tank E3G \u201cMaybe the Saudis can\u2019t do on their own what they\u2019ve been doing for 30 years and block the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Ireland President Mary Robinson said, \u201cThey\u2019re scared. I think they\u2019re worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson, co-chair of the retired leaders group The Elders, is now a prominent climate campaigner. She said that OPEC is concerned \u201cgives me hope.\u201d Last month she clashed publicly with the president of the COP28 negotiations, Sultan al-Jaber, who is also CEO of the Emirates\u2019 national oil company.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua called this year\u2019s climate conference the \u201cmost difficult\u201d of his long career. He said the contentious phase-out issue could be solved in one or two days.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, suggested any call for blocking a deal would be felt most by small countries vulnerable of sea level rise caused by global warming.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, countries here are fighting for their lives. The small islands, and most countries here, are engaging very actively on this discussion in a real way,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cAnd I think it is obviously not responsible to have a position that could mean \u2014 would mean \u2014 the life and death of many million people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not all developing countries felt the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe development of our countries depends, in fact, on the use of fossil fuels,\u201d said Niger\u2019s Issifi Boureima, who\u2019s executive secretary of the Sahel Region Climate Commission. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy for countries like ours to accept a text that agrees to end fossils fuels today. It\u2019s not easy, because what do we do after that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that in the dynamic of multilateral diplomacy, we need to avoid egoism, egoism of the north towards the south.\u201d<\/p>\n

COP28 Director General Majid al-Suwaidi downplayed the OPEC letter, saying the UAE team running the climate conference has been meeting with negotiators to get an ambitious deal. The oil cartel has no formal link to the climate negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel confident that we\u2019re going to get a good result you\u2019re going to be surprised about,\u201d Suwaidi told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

OPEC didn\u2019t immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Protestors Saturday in a flash mob briefly blocked the OPEC exhibit at climate talks, calling for an immediate phase-out of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

As discussions were happening about the letter and how to transition from fossil fuels, the world inched closer to deciding where next year\u2019s climate conference will be held, a third state petrostate. Azerbaijan announced it would host COP29 in Baku, where one of history\u2019s first oil fields sprung up. But U.N. officials said it wasn\u2019t quite a done deal because the proper paperwork hasn\u2019t been submitted.<\/p>\n

The conference presidency has been crowing about deal after deal, many of them involving hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of pledges, but they\u2019ve more nibbled the edges of the key issue of cutting emissions. When it comes to reducing the gases that cause climate change, a key group of scientists who analyze pledges, actions and potential temperature increases said in a report on Saturday that all the action hadn\u2019t amounted to much.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe COP28 Presidency has made a very big deal about a whole lot of voluntary initiatives, while adopting an ambiguous and weak position on the central issue of a fossil fuel phaseout,\u201d Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, co-author of the report, said.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s firestorm of controversy came as protests at the conference center in Dubai ramped up, with a \u201cGlobal Day of Action\u201d urging nations to move decisively to stop climate change and officials from various countries talked increasingly urgently at the official meetings. The OPEC letter has added fuel to their fury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith current policies, the planet is on track to a 2.9 (degree Celsius, 5.2 degree Fahrenheit above pre-industrial temperature) future. We cannot adapt to temperature rise that high; the loss and damage will be incalculable. It will be our death sentence,\u201d Marshall Islands natural resources minister John Silk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not go silently to our graves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber, center, and COP28 CEO Adnan Amin speak ahead of a stocktaking plenary session at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

-Peter Dejong
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