After a day's break, COP28 negotiators turn back to fossil fuels

The United Nations climate conference on Friday began its final week with COP28 negotiators expected to zoom in on the future of fossil fuels on a dangerously warming planet Thursday was a rest day a bit of quiet before talks at the summit grew even more intenseThe COP28 negotiators will work to finalize a key document called the Global Stocktake It evaluates the worlds climate change progress since the 2015 Paris Agreement and what needs to be done now to avoid blowing past its goal of limiting warming to 15 degrees Celsius 27 Fahrenheit compared to preindustrial timesYou start very hopeful euphoric COP28 CEO Annan Amin said Things are happening Then the negotiations get hard and people start spreading rumours and conjecture and a little bit of depression and then things start to come up again And the clarity of the negotiation process becomes clearer Then you have the political engagement and thats where the real intensity and excitement comes fromA draft of the Global Stocktake was already circulating before Thursdays rest day although it was packed full of so many possibilities that its unclear what the final document will say Now its up to global leaders to haggle over what the future should look like and whether there should be a commitment to phase out oil coal and natural gas as climate activists many experts and some nations say or something softerProfessional negotiators working on getting options into shape will turn over their work to senior national officials many at minister levels who will have to make the tough political choices A new draft with amendments should be ready for leaders early Friday morningEU countries along with small island countries oftvictimized by climate change and some progressive Latin American countries are aligned on calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels negotiators said While there will be strong resistance to this measure officials are confident references to fossil fuels will appear in the final text for the first time and within a timeline compatible with UN science reportsRepresentatives for poor nations and climate advocates are putting a lot of pressure on negotiators for the fossil fuel sectionsThe success of COP28 will not depend on speeches from big stages said Uganda climate activist Vanessa Nakate It will depend on leaders calling for a just and equitable phaseout of all fossil fuels without exceptions and distractionsMeanwhile headway was made Thursday on deciding the conference hosts for next years COP29 after Azerbaijan and Armenia released a joint statement agreeing to work toward a peace treaty It said that Armenia supports Azerbaijans bid to host the talks by withdrawing its candidacyCountries had been unable to agree on an eastern European host for next years climate summit with Russia vetoing European Union countries and Azerbaijan and Armenia refusing each others bids A decision on the meetings location and presidency is due within the next weekAway from negotiations Fridays theme at the climate conference was Youth Day with organizers calling it vital for young people to take part in climate activism because theyll be most affected by the decisions at COP28 Activists are expected to ramp up calls for stronger action Friday and into the weekendNotably absent will be climate activist Greta Thunberg who is skipping the conference Thunberg who does not fly because of the carbon pollution it emits criticised its location earlier this year in a major oilproducing countryThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever