COP30 Draft Scraps Fossil-Fuel References, Dividing Nations

All references to fossil fuels have been removed from the latest draft agreement at the COP30 climate summit, setting up a confrontation among nearly 200 countries as negotiations enter their final phase. The omission comes despite calls from Brazil, the United Kingdom and more than 80 nations for a global roadmap to reduce dependence on oil, gas and coal.

An earlier version of the draft included three options for advancing fossil-fuel reduction, but these were deleted following resistance from major oil-producing states. Approval of any final deal requires consensus among all 194 parties.

UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband said the coalition backing a fossil-fuel transition plan intends to keep the issue on the table. “We are determined that one way or another, this innovative idea, with the support of more than 80 countries, is kept alive at this COP,” he said, urging negotiators to consider how future generations will judge their response to the climate crisis.

The release of the new text triggered immediate pushback. A coalition of more than 30 countries, including Colombia, France, Germany, Kenya, Mexico, South Korea, Spain and the UK, issued a letter late Thursday stating that the agreement “does not meet the minimum conditions required for a credible COP outcome” without a commitment to a fossil-fuel transition roadmap.

Two years earlier, COP28 in Dubai committed nations to “transition away from fossil fuels” but did not establish binding timelines. Many countries arrived in Belem seeking to strengthen that language.

Diplomats said Saudi Arabia and several Arab states opposed the inclusion of fossil-fuel commitments. French Environment Minister Monique Barbut said the effort was being blocked by “oil-producing countries — Russia, India, Saudi Arabia — joined by many emerging countries.” Small island states, she added, may accept weaker fossil-fuel language if financing for climate adaptation is increased, though the current draft “has nothing left.”

Brazil’s presidency also dropped its proposal to develop a global plan to shift away from fossil fuels. The move has intensified tensions at the conference, which is scheduled to end Friday evening but could extend past its deadline, as previous COPs have.

European Union climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the text “lacked ambition” and did not reflect the level of action required to meet global emissions targets.

Negotiators from developing countries expressed concern that their priorities — particularly climate finance — were not addressed in the draft. One delegate told Reuters: “You can’t keep saying that things that matter to us are no longer important and that things that matter to the developed countries are the only things that are important.”

The tensions follow the release of a new analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, which found that one in every 25 attendees at COP30 is a fossil fuel lobbyist, a 12% increase compared with the previous conference. Although total attendance in Belem is lower than at recent summits, the proportion of fossil fuel representatives is the highest recorded since KBPO began tracking participation in 2021. Over the past five years, approximately 7,000 fossil fuel lobbyists have been accredited at UN climate summits.

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that expanding, extracting, consuming and subsidizing fossil fuels could amount to an internationally wrongful act. Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur for climate change, said the ruling should guide discussions at the summit. “After the ICJ advisory opinion and the well-document six-decade playbook of climate obstruction, states at Cop should recognize the irreconcilable conflict of interest of the fossil fuel industry – which is similar to the tobacco industry,” she said, reiterating her support for a global ban on fossil fuel lobbying.