{"id":149157,"date":"2025-11-23T19:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/149157\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T19:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:20:09","slug":"end-of-fossil-fuel-era-inches-closer-as-cop30-deal-agreed-after-bitter-standoff-cop30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/149157\/","title":{"rendered":"End of fossil fuel era inches closer as Cop30 deal agreed after bitter standoff | Cop30"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world edged a small step closer to the end of the fossil fuel era on Saturday, but not by nearly enough to stave off the ravages of climate breakdown.<\/p>\n

Countries meeting in Brazil<\/a> for two weeks could manage only a voluntary agreement to begin discussions on a roadmap to an eventual phase-out of fossil fuels, and they achieved this incremental progress only in the teeth of implacable opposition from oil-producing countries.<\/p>\n

The talks were hauled back from the brink of collapse in an all-night session into Saturday morning, after a bitter standoff between a coalition of more than 80 developed and developing countries, and a group led by Saudi Arabia and its allies plus Russia.<\/p>\n

There was disappointment from campaigners, but relief that the talks had produced at least some progress. Developing countries achieved part of their goal at the global talks, which was a tripling of the financial support available from rich countries to help them adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis. They should receive $120bn (\u00a392bn) a year for adaptation, from the $300bn developed countries pledged to them last year, but not until 2035, instead of the 2030 deadline they were demanding. Many had also hoped the increase would be on top of the $300bn.<\/p>\n

A roadmap to the halting of deforestation was dropped from the final deal, a bitter disappointment for nature advocates at this \u201crainforest Cop\u201d held in Bel\u00e9m, near the mouth of the Amazon River.<\/p>\n

The agreement among 194 countries \u2013 excluding the US, which did not send a delegation \u2013 was reached in the early morning after 12 hours of nonstop extra-time talks among ministers in deserted conference halls, and completed at a closing meeting at 1.35pm, after negotiations were hauled back from the brink of collapse on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

In the plenary, many country delegations, including Colombia, complained vociferously that they were not allowed to speak before the deal was gavelled through, despite Brazil having said this would be \u201cCop of truth\u201d. The session was briefly paused but the Cop president, Andr\u00e9 Corr\u00eaa do Lago, then confirmed that the decisions that were gavelled through earlier had been adopted.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Morgan, the Cop veteran and former German climate envoy, said: \u201cWhile far from what\u2019s needed, the outcome in Bel\u00e9m is meaningful progress. The Paris agreement is working, the transition away from fossil fuels agreed in Dubai [at the Cop28 talks in 2023] is accelerating. Despite the efforts of major oil-producing states to slow down the green transition, multilateralism continues to support the interests of the whole world in tackling the climate crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa thinktank, said: \u201cWith an increasingly fractured geopolitical backdrop, Cop30<\/a> gave us some baby steps in the right direction, but considering the scale of the climate crisis, it has failed to rise to the occasion. Despite calling themselves climate leaders, developed countries have betrayed vulnerable nations by failing to deliver science-aligned national emission reduction plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

A drought-stricken village in Turkana, northern Kenya, in 2023, when climate breakdown caused the worst drought in the region\u2019s history. Photograph: SOPA Images\/LightRocket\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Aisha Humaira, Pakistan\u2019s head of delegation, accused developed countries of hypocrisy: \u201cCountries that have used all sources of energy in the last 200 years and have achieved the pinnacle of industrial growth and yet not stopped using all those sources of energy are telling us \u2018stop growing,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThe right to growth and security is fundamental for every country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris agreement, were also addressed in the final text, but less robustly than vulnerable countries had hoped. Before the conference, countries were supposed to present new national plans on cutting emissions, but they fell short of the commitments needed to maintain the 1.5C limit, which has already been breached but which analysts say could be returned to.<\/p>\n

Instead of censuring this failure, the conference agreed to set up an \u201caccelerator\u201d programme to address the shortfall in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which will report back at next year\u2019s Cop, to be held in Turkey but presided over by Australia. The text exhorted countries to \u201cfull implementation of NDCs while striving to do better\u201d.<\/p>\n

The final deal also recognised the \u201cjust transition\u201d that social justice campaigners have been calling for, which means helping workers affected by the move away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy. But key provisions on the exploitation of \u201ccritical minerals\u201d \u2013 which has been accompanied by soaring human rights abuses in some countries \u2013 were blocked by China and Russia.<\/p>\n

\"MomentMoment world secures compromise deal at Cop30 that sidesteps fossil fuels \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Insiders said the talks came close to foundering on Friday, after a hectic few weeks in Brazil that began with a summit of world leaders held by Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, and attended by about 50 heads or deputy heads of state.<\/p>\n

But after the leaders left and Cop30 formally began on Monday 10 November, discussions among ministers and high-ranking officials degenerated into a bitter standoff. A fire near the delegation offices on Thursday afternoon, in which no one was seriously hurt, forced evacuation of the conference centre and disrupted negotiations at a crucial stage.<\/p>\n

When they resumed late on Thursday evening, the rift was clear: more than 80 countries had declared in favour of including a commitment to \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels\u201d in the final outcome, but scores of countries \u2013 led by the Arab group, which includes Saudi Arabia \u2013 lined up against it.<\/p>\n

That opposition forced the relegation of the \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels\u201d \u2013 that scientists say is essential to staving off the worst effects of climate breakdown \u2013 to a voluntary commitment rather than the legally binding decision many had hoped for.<\/p>\n

Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at ActionAid International, said: \u201cA lack of climate finance is throwing a spanner in the works of climate progress. Global south countries, [which] are already carrying the costs of the climate crisis they have not caused, desperately need support from rich countries if they are to take on any more commitments. Nowhere was this more stark than on the issue of fossil fuels, where specific text once again ended up unfunded and on the cutting-room floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikki Reisch, from the Center for International Environmental Law, said: \u201cThis is an empty deal. Cop30 provides a stark reminder that the answers to the climate crisis do not lie inside the climate talks \u2013 they lie with the people and movements leading the way toward a just, equitable, fossil-free future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world edged a small step closer to the end of the fossil fuel era on Saturday, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-149157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}