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Nearly 80 Nobel laureates and former world leaders have criticized the removal of a specific mention of fossil fuels from the draVscek United Nations climate pact that will be the focus of a summit in New York next month.
The initial draVscek of the negotiating text for the ambitious UN Summit on the Future included a reference to “accelerating” a “transition away from fossil fuels”.
This coincides with the agreement already reached between around 200 countries following negotiations at the UN COP28 conference held in Dubai last November.
But revisions to the text to be submitted in the separate New York pact removed any reference to fossil fuels, instead calling for climate action “based on the best available science.”
The alarm was raised by a group of climate leaders, including former Irish President Mary Robinson (who clashed with the president of COP28 in the United Arab Emirates over the need to phase out fossil fuels to limit global warming), as well as Bangladesh’s chief adviser Muhammad Yunus and former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.
“We are gravely concerned that the draVscek Pact for the Future does not even mention fossil fuels, one of the greatest threats facing the world today,” the former leaders and the Nobel laureate group said in a statement.
“We call on the United Nations to ensure that the Compact for the Future includes robust commitments to manage and finance a rapid and just global transition away from coal, oil and gas extraction, in line with the 1.5°C limit agreed by nations in the Paris Agreement.”
Burning fossil fuels is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Scientists say emissions need to be cut by 43 percent by 2030 to keep the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It has already risen by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius during the industrial era.
The UN Future Summit will see all member states meet and agree on a text to address a range of global issues, including sustainable development, technology cooperation and climate change.
Billed by the UN as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges,” the organization said the goals of the summit and the resulting compact were to “reinvigorate multilateralism,” “restore trust” and “strengthen the implementation of existing commitments.”
It will also be the last formal opportunity to discuss climate before the UN COP29 summit in Baku in November, when another oil state will host the negotiations.
Failure to mention fossil fuels in the New York pact would risk “sending a signal that the world is uncertain about the need to phase out fossil fuels,” said Alex Rafalowicz, director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty campaign group.
“It is extremely worrying that the text does not even contain the terms agreed in Dubai last year,” he added, referring to last November’s COP28 agreement, known as the UAE Consensus.
As part of the consensus, countries agreed to take measures including “moving away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a fair, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, in line with science.”
It also acknowledged that targets should be set “in light of different national circumstances,” recognizing that poorer nations may find it more difficult to reduce emissions than richer countries.
The UN did not respond to a request for comment.
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