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UN secretary-general António Guterres has criticised emissions reduction plans launched by COP28 climate summit president Sultan al-Jaber, saying they “clearly fall short of what is required”.
Jaber, who has dual roles as chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and head of this year’s climate summit in Dubai, brokered a series of pledges as part of a new global decarbonisation alliance.
But less than 24 hours after their launch, Guterres said the agreement “says nothing about eliminating emissions from fossil fuel consumption”.
“Science is clear: we need to phase out fossil fuels within a timeframe compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius,” the UN chief said on Sunday. “In addition, [the] announcement provided no clarity on the pathway to reaching net zero by 2050, which is absolutely essential to ensure integrity. There must be no room for greenwashing.”
Jaber’s package, announced by the UAE COP28 presidency together with Saudi Arabia, included a group of about 50 leading oil and gas companies committing to cutting emissions from their operations to net zero by 2050. The agreement included ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, BP and Shell, alongside state energy companies Saudi Aramco and Adnoc.
But it did not cover the bulk of greenhouse gases that result from end consumers’ burning of their oil and gas products, and none of the companies agreed to cut production.
British academic and carbon footprint expert Mike Berners-Lee described the package as “nonsense”, citing the lack of short-term targets for cutting oil and gas companies’ overall emissions. “2050 is way too late unless huge cuts are made right now,” he added, in a post on social media.
Guterres also said a parallel plan drawn up by 116 countries to triple renewable energy capacity was welcome, but “lacks a comprehensive strategy to tackle our reliance on fossil fuels”.
The International Energy Agency has said a brake on new oil, gas and coal development is needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
This target is central to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming ideally to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The global temperature rise is already at least 1.1C.
The IPCC’s latest summary of climate science said in March that projected emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure alone exceeded the levels of carbon required to keep warming to below 1.5C.
Ministers from the Marshall Islands and two other island nations vulnerable from rising seas, Vanuatu and Tuvalu, wrote after the package was unveiled that the clean energy measures should not distract from “the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels”.
In an interview with the Financial Times, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva was also critical of fossil fuel subsidies offered by governments, which the IMF estimates have risen to $1.3tn in direct costs annually.
Georgieva said phasing out such subsidies was a “hugely important task”, but one that the world had not “embraced wholeheartedly”.
“It doesn’t make sense to continue to subsidise fossil fuels”, she said, adding: “We know that as humanity we cannot continue.”
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