EU countries on Monday (16 October) adopted a common stance for the United Nations Cop28 international climate conference but language on the EU’s emissions reduction target and fossil fuel exit goal was softened to reach a unanimous decision.
The EU’s 27 environment ministers met in Luxembourg on Monday to agree on the EU’s stance for the Cop28 summit opening in Dubai on 30 November, throwing their weight behind a goal to triple global renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency improvements by 2030.
The European Union will also push for a “predominantly fossil-free” global energy sector “well before 2050” and strive to reach a “fully or predominantly decarbonised power system in the 2030s,” according to wording agreed by the bloc’s environment ministers.
However, the most ambitious countries had to accept watered-down language on the EU’s push to phase out fossil fuels and reduce emissions as the decision needed to be taken by unanimity.
“Would [the Commission and Presidency] have been able to go even further? Absolutely. And yet, you know, this is a Union where, in the end, we create a mandate with 27 countries,” said EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra after the meeting.
The European Commission and EU presidency holder Spain pushed for stronger language on emissions reduction, saying the EU’s updated legislation would raise the bloc’s climate target from a 55% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to a 57% reduction.
But they had to bow to pressure from Eastern EU countries, which have a more significant challenge decarbonising their economies because of their heavier reliance on coal.
“Texts adopted by unanimity always take a little longer to agree. European countries have quite different energy situations, with some still very dependent on coal,” explained a source in the cabinet of French energy transition minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Updated pledge, but no new target
EU member states will go to Cop28 stressing the importance of scaling up the global ambition to remain within the 1.5ºC global warming limit, said a statement released after the meeting.
While the EU will not come with a new emissions reduction target, it will update its pledge to reflect the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ package of legislation adopted to meet its 2030 climate goals.
According to the European Commission, fully implementing the package will result in a 57% reduction in net emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, more than the initial 55% goal agreed two years ago.
The higher objective reflects the EU’s ambition to grow its carbon sinks and increased level of ambition on renewables and energy efficiency, pushed forward last year in reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But according to Ribera, some countries had concerns about putting this figure to paper. “The main argument was that they did not want to create any confusion. It was not a new goal,” she explained.
In the end, a compromise formulation stipulates that “the Fit for 55 package, when fully implemented, could enable the EU to exceed its target of at least -55%,” said the French ministerial source.
Environmental activists, for their part, want the EU to support a Cop28 outcome that is grounded in science, and to recognise that more must be done to align climate action and finance with Europe’s historical responsibilities.
“For the EU’s climate targets, this means the EU needs to commit to substantially overshoot its current target of -55% net emission cuts and achieve at least -65% gross, or -76% net emission cuts by 2030 and net zero emissions no later than by 2040,” said Sven Harmeling, international climate policy coordinator at the NGO group Climate Action Network Europe.
“Unabated” fossil fuels
The EU’s Cop28 position also includes calls to peak emissions this decade and phase out “unabated” fossil fuels, a controversial term referring to carbon capture and storage technologies.
“We still have this idea that we have to try and avoid using fossil fuels if they have no abatement system and that the long term objective is that they should be phased out of our energy mix as we try to promote decarbonisation,” Ribera explained.
“The agreement in the Council conclusions is that these [abatement technologies] are technologies which should be tied to those sectors where it’s going to be difficult for them to engage in decarbonisation, where it’s difficult to wean themselves off fossil fuels,” she added.
Here too, a compromise solution was found in order to reach a unanimous decision among the 27 member states.
“The term ‘unabated’ appeared twice. There was a compromise: we kept it once in the second line of paragraph 14 and deleted it the second time,” the French source said.
Another complex issue related to subsidies for fossil fuels, which is sensitive for Eastern EU member states like Poland where coal makes up 70% of the electricity mix.
“There, we found a sentence that says: ‘calls for a phase out of fossil fuel subsidies’,” the French source explained. “We removed the word ‘inefficient’ because we believe that all fossil fuel subsidies are inefficient,” he added.
Similarly, the EU text does specify an exact date for when coal power should be phased out. “But we did say that there is an objective of achieving a completely or predominantly decarbonised energy system during the 2030s, ‘leaving no room for new coal power’,” the French source said.
“This is a compromise formulation – there is no EU date for a total phase-out of coal. But given that many countries use a lot of coal, it’s still a significant result.”
According to Ribera, fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or the just transition should also be phased out “as soon as possible”.
Greens slam EU climate commissioner ‘crash landing’
Environmental campaigners and the Greens in the European Parliament were quick to criticise the Council’s Cop28 conclusions, with German Green lawmaker Michael Bloss calling it a “crash landing” for climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra who is entering his second week in office.
“The new climate commissioner has promised a lot and not delivered,” Bloss said, referring to the final outcome on EU’s target and the references to unabated fossil fuels.
The EU has collectively missed the mark by calling only for a global phaseout of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels,” said the group’s director Chiara Martinelli.
“Instead of throwing a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry and placing a risky bet on an unproven, highly expensive method of capturing their carbon emissions, it is far more cost-effective to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and intensify efforts to build a fully renewable energy system,” she added.
This article was produced by Euractiv and republished under a content sharing agreement. Read the original here.
The post EU countries hammer out joint stance for Cop28 climate summit appeared first on Climate Home News.
EU countries hammer out joint stance for Cop28 climate summit
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and oceans correspondent Teresa Tomassoni as they discuss the search for heat-resilient coral reefs that are somehow defying the odds to survive a warming planet.
The world has already lost more than half of its coral reefs, and most of what remains is at risk of disappearing in the next 25 years.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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