The future of fossil fuels – and whether to agree to phase them “down” or “out” – is shaping up to be a key battle at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
While some parties and groups would like to see a deal on phasing out all fossil fuels, others only want to restrict “unabated” coal, oil and gas. Some are opposed to both options.
Meanwhile, alternative formulations are emerging, tying renewable expansion to fossil fuel “substitution”, adding additional verbs such as “accelerating”, adverbs such as “rapidly” or adding timescales such as “this decade”.
The fight over using the phrase “unabated” fossil fuels, implicitly accompanied by its opposite – “abated” – raises the question of exactly what these terms mean.
“Unabated” refers to the burning of fossil fuels where resulting carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gas emissions are released directly into the atmosphere, adding to global warming.
Conversely, “abated” refers to the burning of coal, oil and gas combined with the capture and permanent storage of some proportion of the resulting greenhouse gases. This proportion is a key detail as there is no agreed definition of what “abated” means.
In addition to the fight over “unabated”, evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others can be used to inform fossil-fuel discussions at COP28. Key conclusions from their work include:
- The ongoing use of fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage (CCS) features in almost all 1.5C pathways, but only to a very limited extent.
- Today, CCS barely exists and relying on a major scale-up is considered “risky”. If CCS is limited to plausible levels, then fossil fuel use would have to fall even faster.
- While there is disagreement over the difference between “phase down” and “phase out”, the production and use of fossil fuels drops dramatically in all 1.5C pathways.
This Q&A explains the term “unabated fossil fuels”, the science behind fossil-fuel phaseout and the positions of different countries on what should be agreed in relation to fossil fuels at COP28.
- What are ‘abated’ and ‘unabated’ fossil fuels?
- Do fossil fuels have to be phased out to stay below 1.5C?
- What has been agreed on fossil fuel reduction so far?
- Who wants what on fossil fuels at COP28?
What are ‘abated’ and ‘unabated’ fossil fuels?
The Glasgow climate pact, agreed at the COP26 climate talks in 2021, was the first COP decision to mention any fossil fuel – specifically coal – and this reference was tied to the word “unabated”.
However, this word was not defined and there remains a level of uncertainty around what the associated term “abated” actually means in practice. For example, could a coal-fired power plant capture 10% of the CO2 it produces and still argue its emissions were abated?
Disagreement over fossil fuels and “unabated” sprung up again at the COP27 climate talks in 2022 and has continued ever since. (See: What has been agreed on fossil fuel reduction so far?)
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Dr Alaa Al Khourdajie, a research fellow at Imperial College London, says these disagreements highlighted the need to be “transparent and crystal clear about what abated fossil fuels means”. Al Khourdajie says:
“In the absence of such a clear set of criteria, any capture rate – for example, 50-60% – of carbon emissions could be casually considered abated. This cannot be left ambiguous. Looking at the findings of the technical assessment of the first ‘global stocktake’ discussions, the term unabated is used very heavily in the findings.
“But there is a lack of clarity about what counts as unabated and what counts as abated, largely due to the absence of such agreed definitions in the underlying literature at the time of those negotiations.”
The word “unabated” appeared, once again, in the IPCC’s sixth assessment Working Group III report on how to tackle climate change. The report concluded:
“In all scenarios [limiting warming in 2100 to below 1.5C], fossil fuel use is greatly reduced and unabated coal use is completely phased out by 2050.”
(IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea repeated these lines to COP28 delegates, at a 4 December event.)
Moreover, for the first time, the 2022 IPCC report also included a definition of unabated and abated fossil fuels. This definition was added, by Al Khourdajie and other IPCC authors, as a footnote to the summary for policymakers (SPM), after the word “unabated” was added to the summary.
Dr Chris Bataille, adjunct research fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy and one of the other IPCC authors involved in the footnote tells Carbon Brief:
“At the SPM approval session, a group of parties was very insistent on adding the word ‘unabated’ in front of any language on fossil fuels – and that immediately created a need for a definition. A bunch of us [IPCC authors] were concerned to make sure it was defined and so we had to jump in at the last minute to pull something together.”
The IPCC footnote explains that, in order to count as “abated”, at least 90% of fossil-fuel emissions from power plants should be captured and 50-80% of methane from energy supply. It says:
“In this context, ‘unabated fossil fuels’ refers to fossil fuels produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of GHG emitted throughout the life cycle; for example, capturing 90% or more CO2 from power plants, or 50-80% of fugitive methane emissions from energy supply.”
However, this definition, as drafted, was still somewhat unclear, Bataille tells Carbon Brief. He says the final comma combined with the word “or” implied that this was an alternative to the 90% capture at power plants, whereas the intention had been for both requirements to apply.
In order to clear up this confusion, Al Khourdajie and Bataille published a paper setting out their requirements, in detail, for fossil fuel use to be considered “abated”.
Al Khourdajie tells Carbon Brief:
“We clearly say that the term should be reserved for where the ongoing carbon emissions from using fossil fuels are reduced 90-95% or more; upstream fugitive methane emissions are less than 0.5%, and approaching 0.2%, of equivalent natural gas production; and captured emissions are stored permanently.”
Al Khourdajie notes that the vague definition of “abated” fossil fuel gives a “false, if not dangerous, sense of security” that could lead to inadequate policy measures and investment decisions.
Yet there are some “legitimate uses” of the term, Katrine Petersen, senior policy advisor in thinktank E3G’s fossil fuel transition team, tells Carbon Brief. She says:
“It’s important to note that there are legitimate uses of ‘abatement’ requirements as a route to emissions reductions, too. The use of the term ‘unabated’ in respect to CO2 reduction historically stems from how some governments (such as the UK and Canada) used forms of emissions performance standards to rule out the construction of new coal power plants without CCS, and then to require existing coal power plants to either retrofit CCS to reduce emissions, or instead retire, by certain dates – a regulatory approach that, ultimately, led to no new coal plants being built and clear phase-out dates set, given the high costs and difficulty of CCS.
“This has been an effective use of abatement standards by policymakers and regulators to force action from the coal power industry. But it required clear definitions and regulation rather than just vague language.”
Even so, there are clear risks to the inclusion of the term “unabated”, says Dr Natalie Jones, policy adviser at thinktank the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
She tells Carbon Brief that these risks are particularly acute in the setting of the UN climate talks:
“If the word ‘unabated’ is in the final COP28 text, it will be a distraction from the fossil fuel cuts needed this decade to stay below 1.5C. It muddies the water and could mean parties spend the next five years debating definitions.”
Do fossil fuels have to be phased out to stay below 1.5C?
Fossil fuels are the biggest contributors to current global warming, making up the lion’s share of the cumulative historical emissions that have warmed the Earth by more than 1.2C.
Moreover, existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, if used in line with historical averages, would be sufficient to breach the carbon budget for 1.5C, according to the IPCC. It says:
“Projected cumulative future CO2 emissions over the lifetime of existing and currently planned fossil-fuel infrastructure without additional abatement exceed the total cumulative net CO2 emissions in pathways that limit warming to 1.5C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot.”
Furthermore, continuing to build new fossil-fuel infrastructure would “lock-in” further emissions, the IPCC says with high confidence.
Similarly, the IEA has said there is no space for the development of new, unabated coal-fired power stations or “long-lead time” oil and gas developments, if warming is to stay below 1.5C.
These findings are backed by a “large consensus”, across all published studies, that developing new oil and gas reserves is “incompatible” with staying below 1.5C.
At the aggregate level, the IEA’s 1.5C pathway sees dramatic reductions in unabated fossil fuel use, with only a very small role for abated fossil fuels. This is illustrated in the figure below, which shows that unabated fossil fuel use falls 88% by 2050 and abated fossil fuels remain minimal.
This is just one pathway to staying below 1.5C. The IPCC looks at a wider range of pathways and confirms that reaching net-zero CO2 emissions to stop global warming would entail “substantial” cuts in fossil fuel use, with only “minimal” unabated use remaining and some CCS. It says:
“Net-zero CO2 energy systems entail: a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use, minimal use of unabated fossil fuels, and use of CCS in the remaining fossil fuel system.”
The IPCC looked at a range of different ways to keep warming below 1.5C and used “illustrative mitigation pathways” (IMPs) to show how these approaches are similar – and how they differ.
The second row in the figure below shows four IMPs that limit warming in 2100 to 1.5C, from left to right IMP-Neg, IMP-Ren, IMP-LD and IMP-SP. These refer to pathways relying heavily on negative emissions (IMP-Neg), renewable energy (IMP-Ren), low energy demand (IMP-LD) or “shifting development pathways” (IMP-SP).
Note that only the final three IMPs stay below 1.5C with no- or limited “overshoot”, whereas IMP-Neg sees 1.5C temporarily breached.
Fossil fuel use (red) does not reach zero by 2050 in any of these pathways. As such, it is technically correct to say that fossil fuels can still be used in 2050, in pathways respecting 1.5C.
Nevertheless, as with the IEA’s 1.5C pathway, fossil fuel use overall drops very dramatically in all cases. For COP28, the question is how to describe this dramatic reduction in fossil fuel use, which is clearly needed to stay below 1.5C.
There is disagreement over whether a “phase out” refers to a trajectory that reaches zero or whether it simply refers to a very substantial reduction.
Some prefer the term “phase down” for this reason, whereas others feel this implies a weaker reduction than a “phase out”. In addition, “phase down” could mean only a very small cut.
Furthermore, neither of these phrases cover defined periods of time, unless time bounds such as “this decade” or “well before 2050” are explicitly added.
Regardless of the terminology, the amount of fossil fuels still in the system by 2050 is very small, even when including abated fossil fuels as in the figure below. Furthermore, fossil fuel use reaches zero – or close to zero – in the second half of the century in no- or low-overshoot pathways.
Only in the IMP-Neg pathway (leftmost chart in the figure above), where emissions overshoot 1.5C before returning below that level by 2100, is there a larger role for fossil fuels by mid-century.
Here, the ongoing use of fossil fuels is mainly combined with CCS, shown by the grey wedge on the top of the stack in the figure below. (Unabated fossil fuels are shown in dark yellow.)
Notably, in the pathways that stay below 1.5C with no- or minimal overshoot, the use of fossil fuels combined with CCS is almost non-existent. Where CCS is used, it is combined instead with the use of bioenergy (BECCS) or the direct air capture of CO2 from the atmosphere (DACCS).
In addition to noting the minimal role of CCS in 1.5C pathways, it is worth adding that, to date, the technology has failed to scale up to significant levels.
According to the IEA, there are now more than 40 commercial capture facilities in operation globally, with a total annual “capture capacity” of more than 45m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2).
This capacity can be compared with annual global CO2 emissions that are nearly 1,000 times larger, at an estimated 37bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2023. Put another way, CCS facilities currently capture one tenth of one percent of global CO2 emissions.
The IEA says that momentum behind the technology has been growing since the start of 2018, with more than 50 new capture facilities announced since January 2022.
These could be operating by 2030 and capturing around 125MtCO2 per year. However, only around 20 projects under development have taken a final investment decision, the IEA notes.
Even with this growth in momentum, the pipeline of current projects amounts to only around a third of the level needed under the IEA’s 1.5C pathway in 2030.
For this reason – as well as conflicts with other sustainable development priorities – relying on the significant scaling up of CCS technology would be a “risky” way to respect the 1.5C limit.
(In addition, a new study from the University of Oxford released during COP28, finds that a high-CCS pathway to 1.5C would come with a cumulative $30tn in additional costs by 2050, compared with a low-CCS alternative that relies on faster reductions in fossil fuel use.)
Looking at each of the fossil fuels in turn, in pathways assessed by the IPCC as staying below 1.5C with no- or low-overshoot, there are significant declines in coal use across the board.
In the 1.5C pathway in the middle of the range considered by the IPCC (the median pathway), coal, oil and gas decline by 95%, 60% and 45% by 2050, respectively, compared with 2019 levels.
These median figures hide a wider range for oil and gas. On the other hand, the range gets significantly smaller – and steeper – if pathways are constrained to maximum plausible levels of CCS. In this case, oil and gas see declines of 70% and 84% by 2050, respectively.
Moreover, some countries argue the focus on coal is inequitable, given it tends to be used more heavily in developing countries.
If the pace of coal reductions is eased in these places, then the use of oil and gas – which are more significant in developed countries – would need to fall more steeply.
What has been agreed on fossil fuel reduction so far?
As already noted, COP26 saw the first COP decision that explicitly called out the need to tackle fossil fuels, with agreement on a “phase down of unabated coal”.
The text in the final agreement at COP26 calls upon parties to:
“Accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while providing targeted support to the poorest and most vulnerable in line with national circumstances and recognizing the need for support towards a just transition.”
This language was hard-won, with earlier text at the summit having called for efforts to “accelerate the phasing out of coal”. This short wording was ultimately tempered with additional language and, in the final moments of the summit, the phrase “phase out” was changed to “phase down”.
At COP27, parties took up the fight over fossil-fuel language once again, with India calling for agreement to phase down all fossil fuels, with a group of 80 countries calling for a phase out.
Catherine Abreu, executive director of NGO Destination Zero, told Carbon Brief at the time:
“Parties asked for it pretty consistently. More and more parties [joined the call] with every consultation. Their ask for all fossil fuels to be included in the text was ignored every time…The presidency chose not to put those phrases into the drafts.”
Despite countries’ efforts, the Egyptian presidency refused to include fossil-fuel language in any of the draft negotiating texts throughout the two-week summit, leaving many parties disappointed.
Instead, the meeting simply restated the language that had been agreed in Glasgow at COP26 – with even this reiteration having been in doubt at times.
The conversation over cutting fossil fuel use has continued throughout 2023.
In April, the G7 group of major economies held its meeting on climate, energy and environment in Sapporo, Japan. It agreed text using slightly stronger language than that of previous COPs.
For example, the group emphasised their commitment to “accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels so as to achieve net-zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest”.
The G7 leader’s communiqué reaffirmed a commitment from the previous year’s meeting to achieve a “fully or predominantly decarbonised power sector by 2035”.
This includes taking “concrete and timely steps” towards the goal to “phase-out domestic unabated coal power generation”. It also recognised the need to end the construction of new unabated coal-fired power plants, while working with other nations to support them to do the same.
The G7 agreement added that the member nations ended new direct government support for unabated international thermal coal power generation by the end of 2021, as well as public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector in 2022, except in limited circumstances.
In September, the larger G20 bloc agreed to back global efforts to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, but failed to find agreed language on fossil fuels.
Following tense negotiations, the group of the world’s largest economies finally secured an agreement at a meeting held in New Delhi, India. The main negotiator Amitabh Kant dubbed the agreement the “most ambitious document on climate action” at a press conference.
Yet the language with regards to fossil fuels remained in line with what was agreed at COP26 in Glasgow and COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Reiterating the COP wording, the final G20 agreement called for a transition towards low-emission energy systems, including “accelerating efforts towards phasedown of unabated coal power”.
Moreover, neither the G7 nor the G20 included a definition of “unabated” and “abated” fossil fuels.
Finally, in mid-November, the US and China – sometimes referred to as the G2 – released their joint “Sunnylands statement” on climate change, which also backed a tripling of renewable energy, but contained only oblique references to cutting the use of fossil fuels.
Rather than talking of phasing fossil fuels down or out, the English-language version says the two countries will ramp up renewables “so as to…substitut[e]” for fossil fuels. It says they:
“[I]ntend to sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment in their respective economies through 2030 from 2020 levels so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation [in the power sector], and thereby anticipate post-peaking meaningful absolute power sector emissions reduction, in this critical decade of the 2020s.”
The statement also commits the pair to at least five “large-scale” CCS cooperation projects for industry and energy, in each country by 2030.
BBC News quoted Bernice Lee, distinguished fellow at Chatham House, as saying that it had likely “proven to be too difficult to find the form of language that works for both” on fossil fuels.
Who wants what on fossil fuels at COP28?
In the run-up to COP28, key divisions remained on the approach to phasing out or down unabated or abated fossil fuels.
The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) is one of the only blocs to actively support the phasing out of all fossil fuels, both abated and unabated. In a September statement the bloc said:
“Abatement technologies have a role to play in reducing emissions, but that role in the decarbonisation of energy systems is minimal. We cannot use it to green-light fossil fuel expansion.”
It then made a direct call to phase-out fossil fuel production and use within its submission to the global stocktake at the end of October. This submission said:
“Fossil fuels are at the root of this crisis. We must work together to develop a comprehensive global clean energy access approach to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.”
With the exception of Colombia, none of the HAC members are fossil-fuel producers of note.
After “fractious” internal negotiations over its position, the EU called for a phase-out of “unabated” fossil fuels – and an energy system “predominantly free of fossil fuels well ahead of 2050”.
Crucially, the bloc’s agreed position also “underlines” limitations on the use of CCS. It says that “emission abatement technologies which do not significantly harm the environment, exist at limited scale and are to be used to reduce emissions mainly from hard to abate sectors”.
Furthermore, it adds that “removal technologies [such as BECCS and DACCS] are to contribute to global negative emissions…[and] should not be used to delay climate action in sectors where feasible, effective and cost-efficient mitigation alternatives are available”.
Speaking in July, then-EU climate chief Frans Timmermans listed the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels as a key goal for the bloc, together with tripling renewables rollout by 2030 and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements.
Timmermans also highlighted the limitation on CCS, saying:
“It is important to have a precise understanding of the role of ‘abated fossils’ in a net-zero economy. These need to be residual and only in hard-to-abate sectors. And the sector carries the burden of proof in demonstrating this is achievable and proposing credible investment strategies in carbon-abating technologies”.
The stances of other key countries and groups can be seen on Carbon Brief’s Who Wants What grid.
The US is also supporting the phase-out of “unabated” fossil fuels. A statement released by the White House earlier this year argued that the US needs to “accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels”.
US climate envoy John Kerry backed the use of “abated” fossil fuels, but challenged the oil industry to prove the efficacy of CCS in an interview with the Associated Press earlier this year. He said:
“If you’re able to abate the emissions, capture it. But we don’t have that at-scale yet. And we can’t sit here and just pretend we’re going to automatically have something we don’t have today. Because we might not. It might not work.”
Meanwhile, China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said the phase-out of fossil fuels is “not realistic”, during a speech in Beijing in September.
According to a translation from the Center for China and Globalization, Xie said “completely eliminating fossil energy is not realistic”.
Going into COP28, sources told Reuters that India would continue to resist those pushing for a deadline on the phasedown of fossil fuels. Instead, it would favour shifting focus to reducing overall carbon emissions through “abatement and mitigation technologies”, the newswire said.
COP28 host nation the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – a major and expanding fossil fuel producer – has shifted its stance on fossil fuels as 2023 has progressed.
In May, a speech given by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber said: “We must be laser-focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions, while phasing up viable, affordable zero-carbon alternatives.”
This was widely interpreted as support for CCS and, with its focus on “fossil fuel emissions”, a deflection from phasing out fossil fuels themselves – a sentiment that drew widespread criticism.
Subsequently, Al Jaber started describing the “phasedown” of fossil fuels as “inevitable” and “essential”, following an interview with the Guardian.
A pre-summit note issued by the UAE in October calls for a world “working towards an energy system free of unabated fossil fuels by mid-century, with coal being a priority”.
The early draft texts at COP28 shows countries are considering calling for an “orderly and just” phase out of fossil fuels, but whether “unabated” will be included still remains unclear.
As of 5 December, there are three options officially on the table. These are
- “An orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels”;
- “Accelerating efforts towards phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net-zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century”;
- The third option would be not to mention a fossil fuel phase out (or down) at all.
For many countries, COP28 will not be seen as a success if it fails to agree to language on phasing out all fossil fuels. Whether this is possible – and whether such language will end up being qualified with “unabated” – or some other form of words – remains to be seen.
Strong definitions of abatement could send an important signal at COP28, says Petersen, but could also have real-world implications in driving emissions reductions.
International definitions of abatement could be translated into regulatory standards at national level, she adds, helping countries to reach Paris-aligned emissions reduction levels.
Al Khourdajie says:
“Both [abated and unabated] are certainly used more prominently in international negotiations than ever before. The hope is for the outcomes of the upcoming COP28 to bring clarity to both terms.”
However, he adds that international negotiations should be discussing deeper decarbonisation in developed countries and efforts to support climate action in developing nations, including financial and technological transfer as well as funds for loss and damage. He adds:
“This is the space that discussions in international negotiations should occupy, rather than nuances around abated and unabated fossil fuels, important as they are.”
The post Q&A: Why defining the ‘phaseout’ of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels is so important at COP28 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Why defining the ‘phaseout’ of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels is so important at COP28
Indigenous leaders from across the Amazon have warned that stopping the expansion of oil drilling into their territories will be a crucial test for a growing international coalition committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
As 60 countries discussed at a landmark conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, pathways to end the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, Indigenous groups said the process risks losing credibility if governments continue opening new oil frontiers in the Amazon.
Their central demand was the establishment of fossil fuel “exclusion zones” across Indigenous territories and biodiverse areas of the rainforest, permanently barring new oil and gas expansion in one of the world’s most critical ecosystems. Indigenous representatives proposed establishing protected “Life Zones”, which they said would provide legal safeguards against governments and companies seeking to expand extraction into their lands.
But Indigenous delegates left the conference frustrated as the final synthesis report drafted by co-chairs Colombia and the Netherlands failed to include the proposal.
In a statement at the end of the conference, Patricia Suárez, from the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said formally declaring Indigenous territories – especially those inhabited by peoples in voluntary isolation – as exclusion zones for extractive industries was “an urgent measure”.
“If the heart of the conference does not begin there, it risks remaining a set of good intentions that fails to respond to either science or our Indigenous knowledge systems,” she added.
Pushing for a new oil frontier
Campaigners say the pressure on the Amazon is intensifying just as scientists warn the rainforest is nearing irreversible collapse. Around 20% of all newly identified global oil reserves between 2022 and 2024 were discovered in the Amazon basin, fuelling renewed interest from governments and companies seeking to develop the region as the world’s next major oil frontier.
Ecuador has moved ahead with the auction of new oil blocks in the rainforest, while the country’s right-wing president Daniel Noboa has promoted the region as a “new oil-producing horizon” and backed efforts to expand fracking with support from Chinese companies.
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In Santa Marta, a coalition of seven Indigenous nations from Ecuador issued a declaration condemning the government, which did not participate in the conference.
“While the world talks about energy transition, our government is pushing for more oil in the Amazon,” said Marcelo Mayancha, president of the Shiwiar nation. “Throughout history, we have always defended our land. That is our home. We will forever defend our territory.”
Indigenous groups also warned that Peru – another South American nation absent from the conference – plans to auction new oil blocks in the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, a highly sensitive region along the Brazilian border that contains the world’s largest known concentration of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
COP30 host under scrutiny
Indigenous leaders also criticised Brazil, arguing that despite its international climate leadership, the country is simultaneously advancing major new oil projects in the Amazon region.
Luene Karipuna, delegate from Brazil’s coalition of Amazon peoples (COIAB), said the oil push threatens the stability of the rainforest. Not far from her home, in the northern state of Amapá, state-run oil giant Petrobras is currently exploring for new offshore oil reserves off the mouth of the Amazon river.
Brazil participated in the Santa Marta conference and was among the countries that first pushed for discussions on transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP negotiations. Yet the country is also planning one of the largest expansions in oil production in the world, according to last year’s Production Gap report.
Veteran Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre told Climate Home that the country’s participation at the Santa Marta conference contrasted with its oil and gas production targets. “It does not make any sense for Brazil to continue with any new oil exploration,” he said, and noted that science is clear that no new fossil fuels should be developed to avoid crossing dangerous climate tipping points.
He added that the Brazilian government faces pressures from economic sectors, since Petrobras is one of the countries top exporting companies. “They look only at the economic value of exporting fossil fuels. Brazil has to change.”
The COP30 host also promised to draft a voluntary proposal for a global roadmap away from fossil fuels, which is expected to be published before this year’s COP31 summit.
“In Brazil, that advance has caused so many problems because it overlaps with Indigenous territories. Companies tell us there won’t be an impact, but we see an impact,” Karipuna said. “We feel the Brazilian government has auctioned our land without dialogue.”
For Karipuna and other Indigenous leaders, establishing exclusion zones across the Amazon is no longer just a regional demand, but a prerequisite to prevent the collapse of the rainforest.
“That’s the first step for an energy transition that places Indigenous peoples at the centre,” she added.
The post Indigenous groups warn Amazon oil expansion tests fossil fuel phase-out coalition appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/08/indigenous-amazon-oil-expansion-fossil-fuel-phase-out-coalition-santa-marta/
African leaders have intensified calls for governments to stop exporting raw minerals and step up efforts to align their policies, share infrastructure and coordinate investment to add value to their resources and bring economic prosperity to the continent.
In a speech to the inaugural Kenya Mining Investment Conference & Expo in Nairobi this week, Kenyan President William Ruto became the latest African leader to confirm the country will end exports of raw mineral ore. The East African nation has deposits of gold, iron ore and copper and recently launched a tender for global investors to develop a deposit of rare earths, which are used in EV motors and wind turbines, valued at $62 billion.
Kenya is among more than a dozen African nations that have either banned or imposed export curbs on their mineral resources as they seek to process minerals domestically to boost revenues, create jobs and capture a slice of the industries that are producing high-value clean tech for the energy transition.
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“For too long we have extracted and exported raw materials at the bottom of the value chain, while others have processed, refined, manufactured and captured the greater share of economic value,” Ruto told African ministers and stakeholders gathered at the mining investment conference in Nairobi.
As a result, Africa currently captures less than 1% of the value generated from global clean energy technologies, he said. To address this, Kenya, in collaboration with other African nations, “will process our minerals here in the continent, we will refine them here and we will manufacture them here”, he added.
Mineral export restrictions on the rise
Africa is a major supplier of minerals needed for the global energy transition. The continent holds an estimated 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including lithium, cobalt and copper. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of global cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, while countries such as Guinea dominate bauxite production, and Mozambique and Tanzania hold significant graphite deposits.
But African governments have struggled to attract the investment needed to turn their vast mineral wealth into a green industrial powerhouse. Recently Burundi, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are among those that have resorted to banning the export of unrefined minerals to incentivise foreign companies to invest in value addition locally.
Outdated geological data limits Africa’s push to benefit from its mineral wealth
This week, Zimbabwe exported its first shipments of lithium sulphate, an intermediate form of processed lithium that can be further refined into battery-grade material, from a mine and processing plant operated by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.
After freezing all exports of lithium concentrate – the first stage of processing – earlier this year, the government introduced export quotas and will ban all exports from January 2027.
Export restrictions on critical raw materials have grown more than five-fold since 2009, found a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published this week. In 2024, a more diverse group of countries, including many resource-rich developing economies in Africa and Asia, introduced restrictions, including Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Angola.
This is “a structural shift in the wrong direction,” Mathias Cormann, the OECD’s secretary-general, told the organisations’ Critical Minerals Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, this week.
“We understand the motivations: building local industries, managing environmental impacts, capturing greater value domestically. But our research is quite clear. Export restrictions distort investment, reduce volumes and undermine supply security often while delivering limited gains in value added,” he said.
In-country barriers to success
Thomas Scurfield, Africa senior economic analyst at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Climate Home News that export restrictions “can look like a promising route to local value addition” for cash-strapped African mineral producers but have “rarely worked” unless countries already have reliable energy, infrastructure and competitive costs for processing.
“Without those conditions, bans may simply push companies to scale back mining rather than scale up processing,” he said.
Alaka Lugonzo, partnerships lead for Africa at Global Witness, identified gaps in practical skills and infrastructure as other major barriers. “You need engineers, geologists, marketers,” Lugonzo said, warning that graduates are increasingly unable to match the pace of industry change.
On infrastructure, she said that plentiful and stable energy supplies are vital and while Kenya has relatively robust road networks, they are insufficient for industrial-scale operations.
“Meaningful value addition and real industrialisation requires heavy machinery… and you will need better infrastructure,” she said, highlighting persistent last-mile challenges in mining regions where “there’s no railway, there’s no electricity, there’s no water”.
Export capacity is another concern, she said, particularly whether existing port systems could handle increased volumes of processed minerals.
Regional approach recommended
Scurfield said that through regional cooperation – including pooling supplies, specialising across different stages of refining and manufacturing, and building larger regional markets – “African countries could overcome many domestic constraints that make going alone difficult”.
That’s what close to 20 African governments are working to deliver as part of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, which was set up by African ministers and is dedicated to foster cooperation among African nations to build mineral value chains and better benefit from the energy transition.
Africa urged to unite on minerals as US strikes bilateral deals
Nigerian Minister of Solid Minerals Dele Alake, who chairs the group, said “true collaboration” between countries, including aligning mining policies, sharing infrastructure, coordinating investment strategies and promoting trade across the continent, will create the conditions for long-term investments that could turn Africa into “a formidable and competitive force within the global mineral supply chain”.
“The time has come for Africa to redefine its place within the global mineral economy and that transformation must begin with regional integration and regional cooperation,” he told the mining investment conference in Nairobi.
Lugonzo of Global Witness agreed, saying that value-addition would benefit from adopting a continental perspective. “Why should Kenya build another smelter when we can export our gold to Tanzania for smelting, and then we use the pipeline through Uganda to take it to the port and we export it?” she asked.
To facilitate that, there is a need to operationalise the Africa Free Trade Continental Agreement (AFTCA), she added. “That agreement is the only way Africa is going to move from point A to point B.”
The post Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/04/30/kenya-seeks-regional-coordination-to-build-african-mineral-value-chains/
The future of the global shipping industry – and its 3% share of global emissions – will be decided in three weeks of talks in the third quarter of this year, after a decision taken in London on Friday.
At the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters this week, governments largely failed to substantively negotiate a controversial set of measures to penalise polluting ships and reward vessels running on clean fuels known as the Net-Zero Framework. The green shipping plan has been aggressively opposed by fossil fuel-producing nations, in particular by the US and Saudi Arabia.
This week, countries delivered statements outlining their views on the measures in a session that ran from Wednesday into Thursday. Then, late on Friday afternoon, they discussed when to negotiate these measures and what proposals they should discuss.
After a lengthy debate, which the talks’ chair Harry Conway joked was confusing, governments agreed to hold a week of behind-closed-door talks from 1 September to 4 September and from 23 November to 27 November.
Following these meetings, which are intended to negotiate disagreements on the NZF and rival watered-down measures proposed by the US and its allies, there will be public talks from November 30 to December 4.
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US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned -
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IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it
Last October, talks intended to adopt the NZF provisionally agreed in April 2025 were derailed by the US and Saudi Arabia, who successfully persuaded a majority of countries to vote to postpone the talks by a year.
Those talks, known as an extraordinary session, are now scheduled to resume on Friday December 4 unless governments decide otherwise in the preceding weeks. While this Friday session will be in the same building with the same participants as the rest of the week’s talks, calling it the extraordinary session is significant as it means the NZF can be voted on.
Em Fenton, senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green said that the NZF “has survived but survival is not a victory” and called for it to be adopted later this year “in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the frontlines of climate impacts”.
NZF’s supporters
The NZF would penalise the owners of particularly polluting ships and use the revenues to fund cleaner fuels, support affected workers and help developing countries manage the transition.
Many governments – particularly in Europe, the Pacific and some Latin American and African nations – spoke in favour of it this week.
South Africa said the fund it would create is “the key enabler of a just transition” and its removal would take away predictable revenues from African countries. Vanuatu said that “we are not here to sink the ship but to man it”.
Australia’s representative called it a “carefully balanced compromise”, as it was provisionally agreed by a large majority after years of negotiations, and warned that failing to adopt it would harm the shipping industry by failing to provide certainty.
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Canada’s negotiator said that if it was weakened to appease its critics like the US and Saudi Arabia, this would disappoint those who think it is too weak already like the Pacific islands.
A large group of mainly big developing countries like Nigeria and Indonesia did not rule out supporting the framework but called for adjustments to help developing countries deal with the changes. Nigeria called for developing countries to be given more time to implement the measures, a minimum share of the fund’s revenues and discounts for ships bringing them food and energy.
According to analysis from the University of College London’s Energy Institute, the countries speaking in support of the NZF include five countries which voted with the US to postpone talks in October and a further ten countries which did not take a clear position at that time. Most governments support the NZF as the basis for further talks, the institute said.
Opposition remains
But a small group of mainly oil-producing nations said they are opposed to any financial penalties for particularly polluting ships.
They support a proposal submitted by Liberia, Argentina and Panama which has proposed weakening emission targets and ditching any funding mechanism for the framework involving “direct revenue collection and disbursement”.
Argentina argued that the NZF would harm countries which are far from their export markets and said concerns over that cannot be solved “by magic with guidelines”. They added that, as a result, the NZF itself needs to be fundamentally re-negotiated.
The UCL Energy Institute said that just 24 countries – less than a quarter of those who spoke – said they supported Argentina’s proposal.
While this week’s talks did not see the kind of US threats reported in October, their delegation did leave personalised flyers on every delegate’s desk which were described by academics, negotiators and climate campaigners as misleading.
One witness told Climate Home News that junior US delegates arrived early on Wednesday and placed flyers behind governments’ name plates warning each country of the costs they would incur if the NZF is adopted.
The figures on a selection of leaflets seen by Climate Home News ranged from $100 million for Panama to $3.5 billion for the Netherlands. “They are trying to scare countries away from supporting climate action with one-sided information”, one negotiator told Climate Home News.
They added that the calculations, by the US State Department’s Office of the Chief Economist, ignore the fact that the money raised would be shared to help poorer countries’ transition as well as ignoring the economic costs of failing to address climate change.
Tristan Smith, an academic representing the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, told the meeting that the calculations were “opaque” and flawed as they overstate the contribution of fuel cost to trade costs.
A US State Department Spokesperson said in a statement that they “firmly stand behind our estimates” which were shared “in good faith” and to “provide an additional tool to policymakers as they contemplate the true economic burden over the NZF”.
The post Key green shipping talks to be held in late 2026 appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/01/key-green-shipping-talks-to-be-held-in-late-2026/
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