Baerbock calls for "global commitment" to move away from fossil fuels
"And we need - this is the furthest and most difficult leap - a global commitment that we will all gradually phase out fossil fuels." Baerbock announced that the German government would fight hard for this in Dubai and "turn even the smallest screw in the negotiations".
Halfway through the conference on Wednesday, the German delegation expressed cautious optimism about the prospects for ambitious resolutions by the end of the conference. "A good result is possible, but it won't be easy," said the German Climate Envoy and State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office, Jennifer Morgan.
The resolutions of the World Climate Conference must be reached by consensus. The future use of fossil fuels is one of the main points of contention at the COP. Oil- and gas-exporting countries in particular are resisting calls to phase out fossil fuels. Conversely, numerous other countries, including Germany and the EU, are pushing for the phase-out perspective to be enshrined in the final document of the climate conference.
A new negotiating text presented on Tuesday left the opposing positions side by side. The most far-reaching option in the text calls for an "orderly and fair phase-out of fossil fuels".
Another variant calls for "accelerating efforts to phase out fossil fuels". However, there should be exemptions for plants that capture emissions in order to store or use them (CCS or CCU), provided that "CO2 neutrality in the energy system is achieved by or around the middle of the century". However, the text also provided for the possibility of not mentioning the move away from oil, coal and gas at all.
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Source: www.stern.de
