All climate summits need a story, and the one in the Amazonian city of Belém (Brazil) didn’t have a clear story a few weeks ago, except for the fact that the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) is taking place at a really complicated time for the international battle against climate change because of the advance of denialist populism, with Donald Trump at its helm. But the host of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, opened the door to the start of this event: in Belém a roadmap to overcome dependence on fossil fuels must be promoted. Support for this initiative is increasing in the last week of this conference held under the umbrella of the United Nations.
This Tuesday, about twenty ministers decided to show this support publicly, in a press conference. There were representatives from Germany, the United Kingdom, Colombia and Kenya… as well as the Spanish Minister for Environmental Transition, Sara Ajcin. “I think we will achieve it,” he explained to the press after that conference. “Now is the time to cross this turning point and get something concrete,” the Spaniard added about the need to strengthen this roadmap to leave fossil fuels behind.
Currently, the draft circulated by the COP Presidency includes a reference to the road map or road map forward. The need to end public subsidies for fossil fuels was also cited, another point Agesen weighed in on.
Colombia’s Environment Minister, Irene Velez Torre, explained that “the road map is essential.” This country knows this well, as it is a producer of oil and coal, and has committed to putting an end to these extractions. The roadmap is not only necessary to combat climate change – fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming – but it is also necessary to enable producing countries whose economies depend on these exports to achieve a just transition.
Currently, the struggle is focused on obtaining a mandate from this summit to develop the roadmap for upcoming conferences. But the mere mention of fossil fuels has been ringing alarm bells in climate change negotiations for more than three decades. Because since the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, on which these COPs and the Paris Agreement hang, there has been talk and legislation to end greenhouse emissions. However, its main causes, which are fuel, and the need to stay away from it, were not directly addressed until the 2023 summit, which will be held in Dubai. There, to the surprise of many, countries agreed to a declaration calling for them to be left behind.
At last year’s event, in Baku, it was not possible to recover that signal. In fact, the host, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, described the fuel as a “gift from God” just a year ago at the opening of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku.
Now, in Brazil, Lula has abandoned a challenge that more than two dozen countries have publicly embraced in an initiative promoted by the Marshall Islands. More countries are expected to join in the next few hours. Some analysts estimate the amount of support at more than six dozen.
But the key is not in those who subscribe to it, but in those who reject it. In previous appointments, oil-producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia, prohibited mention of oil, gas and coal, arguing that they should only talk about emissions. For now, they remain silent. But Agesen insisted on Tuesday that what he intends to do now at COP30 is to give continuity to something already agreed at the Dubai summit: how to leave the fossil fuels behind the climate crisis behind.
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