Fossil fuel exploration should cease globally by 2030 and funding to rescue poor countries from the impacts of the climate crisis should reach $200bn (£165bn) to $400bn a year by the same date, according to proposals in a UN report before the next climate summit.
Countries were still “way off track” to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the report found, and much more action would be needed to make it possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.
The UN’s synthesis report on the global stocktake, published on Wednesday, will form the basis for discussions at the Cop28 conference in Dubai, which begins at the end of November. The global stocktake is a process mandated under the Paris agreement, intended to check every five years on countries’ progress on meeting their emissions-cutting goals.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said the report offered a range of actions for governments to consider. “[These are] clear targets which provide a north star for the action that is required by countries,” he said.
Greenhouse gas emissions are still rising but there is broad agreement they must peak by 2025 at the latest if there is to be a chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C.
“This is a major opportunity being presented for the course correction that is so urgently called for,” Stiell said. “[The report] lays out elements that can be incorporated into a response.” But while most countries agreed on the need to change direction, he said, there was “significant divergence” on how to achieve the changes needed.
Other proposals in the report include a tripling of renewable energy capacity and a doubling of energy efficiency globally by 2030. It was the second of two documents that will underpin discussions at Cop28. The first also contained proposals to phase out fossil fuels – a highly contentious issue that was sidelined at the last two UN climate summits, Cop27 in Egypt last year and Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021.
However, there is no guarantee any such proposals will make it into any final outcome from the two weeks of negotiations at Cop28 or even that they will be on the official agenda for the summit.
The global stocktake papers will be discussed next week at technical meetings of UN nations, and again at a “pre-Cop” meeting in Abu Dhabi at the end of this month. Stiell said it was for governments to determine what they would put on the agenda at Cop28, and for the host country, the United Arab Emirates, to “shape what form this takes”.
Many campaigners are concerned that the UAE, as a major oil and gas producer, will not push for the phase-out of fossil fuels that more than 80 countries want.
Catherine Pettengell, the executive director of Climate Action Network UK, called for the recommendations in the global stocktake reports to be taken forward. “Cop28 must be a decisive moment to end the era of fossil fuels and bring about a just and equitable transition,” she said. “Today’s synthesis report for the global stocktake makes clear that an agreement on ending fossil fuels must be at the heart of the outcomes for Cop28 to be a success.”
Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, said a consensus was forming around the need to phase out fossil fuels. “In the face of undeniable evidence linking fossil fuels to the climate crisis, the industry has long evaded accountability under the UN,” he said. “The era of mere rhetoric is over, and it’s time to hold culpable fossil fuel corporations accountable. Cop28 must deliver more than words – it should initiate a process to craft a new global fossil fuel treaty, filling the void left by the Paris agreement.”
He also called for the needs of developing countries and poorer people to be a key consideration. “This new global framework needs to ensure that all workers and communities reliant on fossil fuels for jobs or energy, especially in developing nations, receive support through international cooperation. Their right to a just transition to a greener, safer world must be honoured.”
