The pressure to comply with the demand for adopting a UN-agreed pathway to cut fossil fuels is increasing globally with the claim being now echoed by senior UN officials, though subtly. During the recently concluded UN climate meeting at Bonn, the COP 31 leads also did not rule out the demand in response to a query from The Plurals.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has recently called for a “fast, fair transition to clean energy,” referring to the huge impact of on-going El Niño at a climate meeting at London that concluded end-June, adding to the global demand to accept fossil fuel cut roadmap as part of the UN negotiation process that was set up during the recent UN climate summit at Bonn. Several countries, including India, opposed the move in Bonn.
“A fast, fair transition to clean energy (is required)…El Niño is not just knocking on the door; it risks blowing the house down,” said the official at the London meeting. “Emissions must peak immediately (and) fall steeply this decade…and reach global Net Zero by 2050…as governments committed at the 2023 UN Climate Conference,” he had added.
India opposed the move in Bonn
India had unequivocally opposed the move in Bonn, stating in the plenaries that “no new issues or obligations beyond agreed mandates should be considered”, a position an Indian negotiator reiterated to this correspondent recently.
Experts, however, pointed out that India should engage with the demand on its own terms, rather that resisting it with a blanket ban.
“India should not treat the proposed fossil fuel roadmap as a threat to be rejected outright. It should engage with it because in a fast-evolving climate negotiation, absence at the table only allows others to influence the terms, timelines and political discourse,” said Anjal Prakash, professor of public policy at Flame University and an author of an on-going UN report on climate change and cities, to The Plurals recently.
“In 2023, all the countries including India had agreed to cut fossil fuels by 2050, and the roadmap is only an extension of that,” argued a negotiator from a vulnerable country.
“Despite developed countries opposing it vehemently, the agenda of loss and damage funding got included in the formal negotiation process at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh; the same can happen for the fossil fuel roadmap in the coming years. If not at COP31, at COP32 where the next global stock will take place,” said a climate analyst.
Up to the countries to take the final call: COP 31 leads
At Bonn both the COP 31 Designated President and COP 31 Designated Negotiation head, from Turkey and Australia respectively, did not rule out the fossil fuel demand to be considered in future.
“Both Turkey and Australia were at the Santa Marta, the Columbia meeting on fossil fuel cut in April attended by 57 countries. While we acknowledge the importance of considering the roadmap in the UN negotiation, it is upon the countries to take the final call,” Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s minister and the COP31 President-Designate had said to this correspondent at Bonn. This was echoed by Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister and the COP 31 President–Designate of Negotiations, on the sidelines of the global negotiation processes.
Critical decisions left for Antalya
Apart from being caught in an imbroglio on the fossil fuel cut roadmap, the Bonn mid-yearly UN climate meeting, which concluded in the third week of June, could only achieve progress on setting up a just transition mechanism after a prolonged negotiation, but concluded with a deadlock over the key agenda of climate finance.
There was not much progress in other key areas such as Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), pushing the onus of taking critical decisions to COP31in Antalya. The documents generated in Bonn are to serve as the base for the next UN global climate meeting to be held at Antalya, Turkey, in November 2026.
While adequate financing in all sectors is critical to climate action, just transition is a mechanism to ensure a shift toward a climate-attested economy that needs to be fair and inclusive. India, with 13 million people depending on coal-linked livelihoods, needs substantial support for just transition .
Don’t renegotiate already accepted decisions: UN
In finance, setting up a proposed climate finance work programme (CFWP), a two-year United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) initiative, was decided at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. But developed countries dragged their feet in Bonn on its operational details.
“It was the understanding from last COP that the climate finance work programme should be on the agenda. While India and other developing economies are supporting us but the developed countries are pushing it back,” alleged Amjad Abdulla, chief negotiator of the Maldives in Bonn, representing highly vulnerable least developed and island countries.
Simon Steill, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change programme, admitted that a few governments are trying to revisit already unanimously agreed decisions.
“We must all deliver on existing obligations and plans…And we simply cannot afford to reopen previous decisions, renegotiate existing targets, or to backslide,” said the UN climate head at the conclusion of the Bonn meeting.
Experts pointed out that the Bonn development may have critical impact on climate negotiations and future global climate. The World Meteorological Organisation has recently announced that the next five years are expected to be highly critical for climatic impacts.