As the United Arab Emirates prepares to host the COP28 climate conference, many politicians, business leaders and civic organisations say the measure of the summit’s success will come down to one issue: whether there is a global agreement to phase out all fossil fuels.
For years, the UN summit, which rotates location annually and draws in tens of thousands of delegates, including negotiators and politicians from almost 200 countries, skirted around the main cause of climate change: the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels account for about three-quarters of all climate change-inducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But circumstances changed in recent years, with countries agreeing to reduce coal usage at COP26 in Glasgow. More than 80 countries backed a proposal to stop using fossil fuels at COP27 in Egypt last year, although there was no global agreement.