Fifty of the world's oil and gas firms, including Australia's Woodside Energy, have pledged to decarbonise their operations as calls for a phase-out grow louder.
Some 2400 people connected to coal, oil and gas have been registered for the two-week COP28 climate summit, which green groups say is four times last year's tally.
After months of negotiations, the United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched an industry pact that brought more than 40 per cent of global oil production and trillions of tonnes of emissions into the fold.
Separately, the United States has announced a rule to sharply reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations.
The landmark Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter (OGDC) launched in Dubai is a first step for many national oil companies, marking their adoption of a net zero emissions by 2050 target.
"I know they and others can and need to do more," COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber says.
"We need the entire industry to keep 1.5C within reach and set even stronger ambitions for decarbonisation."
Earlier this year, he said the world must focus on phasing out fossil fuel emissions - not their use.
Signatories to his charter aim to end so-called routine flaring by 2030, achieve "near zero" methane emissions, submit to stricter reporting on gas emissions and invest in technology.
The World Bank estimates routine flaring, or the burning of gas by-products when extracting oil, last year released 357 million tonnes of emissions, of which 42 million was in the more toxic form of methane.
"By signing this important industry charter, Woodside is reaffirming its strong commitment to working with our peers to take action on climate change," company boss Meg O'Neill says.
But mining billionaire and green energy champion Andrew Forrest has accused Woodside and its CEO, former ExxonMobil executive Ms O'Neill, of "peddling poison".
The heads of fossil fuel bosses should be "put on spikes", he told Perth radio station 6PR on Friday.
He also attacked carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology, which has been backed by successive governments as a way to decarbonise Australia's major gas projects.
"Carbon sequestration is just an old lie waiting for the next idiot to come along. It's been failing dismally for 50 years," he said.
"You don't give a dying patient a medicine which is likely to fail, you give them a medicine likely to work."
Australian Energy Producers CEO Samantha McCulloch says Australia's oil and gas industry is already committed to net zero across the economy by 2050.
"We committed to this in February 2021, 10 months before Australia did," she says.
"Some of our members have even earlier net zero targets."
Ms McCulloch says the industry is a major investor in emission reduction technologies, having already announced billions of dollars of projects in technologies such as CCUS.
Australia's industry is also committed to reducing flaring and methane emissions, she adds.
Under a CEO-led Oil and Gas Climate Initiative dating back to 2017, signatories vowed to treat methane emissions as seriously as the industry treats safety incidents or oil spills.
Climate activists say the most recent charter is nothing more than a "do-over" of a two-year-old methane pledge.
Even conservative think tank the Atlantic Council says "there are significant shortcomings to the charter".
It does not cover companies that transport hydrocarbons or the refining and processing facilities that turn them into products such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) - where the UAE is Australia's rival as top exporter.
This means the agreement only addresses scope one and two emissions and is silent on what are known as scope three emissions from the use of oil and gas products - for both carbon dioxide and methane.
Nor does the charter promise to reduce production.
Leading multinationals like Chevron and its local subsidiary, the operator of Australia's massive Gorgon project, did not sign the charter.
"Chevron welcomes the COP28 presidency's efforts to increase industry collaboration to drive down scope 1 and 2 global emissions," company spokesman says.
"We don't take joining global initiatives like this lightly and require more clarity on the framework and path forward.
"Our view is that this initiative seeks to raise the bar for companies who do not have set emissions targets - Chevron already does."
Meanwhile Woodside has confirmed merger talks with Santos that - if successful - would create Australia's biggest LNG producer, potentially shipping decades of gas to Asia.
