COP28: Council sets out EU position for UN climate summit in Dubai
The Council today approved conclusions that will serve as the EU’s general negotiating position for the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November to 12 December 2023.
In its conclusions, the Council highlights the opportunities that ambitious climate action brings for the planet, the global economy and the people, and the importance of ensuring a just transition towards sustainable climate-resilient and climate-neutral economies and societies that leaves no one behind.
Increasing global ambition towards climate neutrality
Member states highlight the importance of substantially scaling up global climate ambition to keep the 1.5°C objective within reach, in line with the Paris Agreement. They stress that collectively, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and their updates are currently not sufficient to reach the objective, and point out that all Parties should have revisited and strengthened their NDCs or updated their long-term low GHG emission development strategies (LTS) ahead of COP28. In particular, major economies should have enhanced the ambition of their NDCs and updated their LTS to include a net-zero emissions target to be reached by 2050 at the latest.
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Phasing out fossil fuels and increasing renewable energy capacity
The Council stresses that the transition to a climate-neutral economy will require a global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels and a peak in their consumption in this decade. It highlights the importance of having the energy sector predominantly free of fossil fuels well before 2050, as well as of striving for a fully or predominantly decarbonised global power system in the 2030s, since cost-effective emissions reduction measures are readily available. It also calls for a phase-out as soon as possible of fossil fuel subsidies which do not address energy poverty or just transition.
Original Council of the EU press release: