DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A global deal on ending the use of fossil fuels was mired in division as U.N. climate talks opened on Thursday in Dubai, with major polluters and the oil-rich host country signaling they weren’t on board.

Deciding how to describe the shift away from coal, oil and gas — the primary drivers of climate change — is one of the top political issues at this year’s talks known as COP28. The debate largely fixates on whether to phase those fuels “out” versus “down,” whether the word choice makes a practical difference, and whether nations should set deadlines for ditching their polluting energy sources. 

Some take the argument a step further: Does a phaseout mean eliminating all fossil fuels, or just those whose planet-warming pollution isn’t being captured before it hits the atmosphere?

The European Union and an alliance of vulnerable countries have staked the success of the conference on a deal to “phase out” fossil fuels, ending centuries of reliance on them.

“Words matter. And it sends signals,” EU special climate envoy Anthony Agotha said in November at an event at Chatham House in London. “It sends signals to people. It sends signals to markets.”

U.N. climate chief Simon Steill offered a warning at the opening of the conference on Thursday.

“If we do not signal the terminal decline of the fossil fuel era as we know it, we welcome our own terminal decline. And we choose to pay with people’s lives,” he said. 

But United Arab Emirates’ conference officials have warned it may be diplomatically impractical to call for the complete end of fossil fuel use from the almost 200 countries present — including major oil and gas producers like the UAE. Some observers warned that such a push could expend much-needed political capital in a fight over wording that may not actually compel nations to do anything differently. What matters is the actions countries take outside the conference, they say.

“I know there are strong views about including language on fossil fuels. … We collectively have the power to do something unprecedented,” COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, the Emirati official who also heads the UAE’s state-run oil company, said at the opening of the conference. “I ask you all to work together. Be flexible. Find common ground.”

Calls for a fossil fuel phaseout put the UAE in a tough spot — left to choose between going against its own interests and being seen as undercutting the talks.

Al-Jaber refused to join the EU in calling for a “phaseout” of fossil fuels during a bilateral meeting in Brussels this month, according to a European Commission official who was granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Talking points ostensibly prepared for al-Jaber, which the BBC and the Centre for Climate Reporting published this week, suggested the COP28 presidency supports a “phase-down” instead. “Phase down gives us greater scope to align climate policy with real-world inclusive policy, finance and technology solutions,” the document says. Al-Jaber called the documents “false” in a press briefing Wednesday, saying, “Never, ever did I see these talking points.”

Out vs. down

The pressure is on countries to emerge from COP28 with a roadmap of actions to set the world on a safer course. Current national policies doom the planet to warm well beyond the limit that all governments agreed to in Paris in 2015 — no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and if possible less than 1.5 degrees. (The planet has already warmed by around 1.3 degrees.)

One option, calling to phase out fossil fuels, would be a historic first. Climate talks have generally steered away from mentioning the fuels that are primarily responsible for the problem. The first mention was only in 2021, when talks in Glasgow ended with an agreement to phase “down” coal.

A phasing out of fossil fuels indicates a shift away from coal, oil and gas until their use is eliminated. Other countries have suggested using the term “phasing down,” which they understand to mean a reduction in use but not a complete end. 

An official from Spain, the country that will head the EU’s negotiating team at this conference, described getting language on fossil fuels into the final COP decision as “the most important battle,” but also the “trickiest aspect,” acknowledging: “We know we need to negotiate.” 

The official, who held a briefing with reporters last Friday on the condition that they not be named, contended that as of last week, more than 80 countries had expressed support for the EU’s three-target approach: tripling renewable energy capacity, doubling energy efficiency and phasing out fossil fuels. 

The “phaseout” language was already expected to face stiff opposition from economies dependent on fossil fuel production, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia — these countries typically filibuster and obfuscate at climate talks, watering down commitments to a lower bar. But it has also drawn criticism from China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter and a pivotal actor at the climate talks.  

China’s climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, said in September that “completely eliminating fossil energy is not realistic.” A submission to the U.N. that same month indicates China’s support for increasing the world’s share of non-fossil energy while recognizing “the significant role of fossil fuels in ensuring energy supply security” — a major sticking point for Beijing as it seeks to meet rising energy demands. 

For China, a secure transition away from fossil fuels means building the new before ditching the old, said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 

“What we need at the COP may not necessarily be the perfect language but we need language that can trigger the best possible national response,” said Shuo. “How [do] you craft that language so it speaks to the national capitals? One way you do that is to make sure you have phase-in first and then you do the phaseout.”

The US-UK special relationship

The United States and United Kingdom — major greenhouse gas producers and traditional EU allies — have questioned whether the “phaseout” wording is worth the diplomatic effort. 

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told reporters on the eve of the talks that he unequivocally supported “language requiring the phaseout of unabated fossil fuels.” (In climate circles, “unabated” means pollution that isn’t captured and removed from the atmosphere.)

Kerry also noted: “We still have people who have not signed up to that. They are, some of them, among the major producers of fossil fuel and they need to immediately step up and be part of the solution.”

But a senior State Department official told reporters earlier this month not to put too much weight on whether to call it a phasedown or a phaseout. And the U.S., the world’s top oil and gas producer, does not deem it necessary to provide an expiration date for oil and gas as long as any final text makes it clear the world must hit net-zero emissions by 2050. 

The official suggested that more creative language might be needed to come up with something all countries could agree to. A deal between the U.S. and China in November showed a potentially different path. The two powers agreed to increase renewable energy deployment to “accelerate substitution” of fossil fuels.

“You can’t have 1.5 [degrees] without addressing fossil [fuels], and the Pacific doesn’t have the future we need without 1.5,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, one of many island nations threatened by rising seas. “So whatever creative language might emerge, it can’t be so creative that it doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, which is that you need to address the production of fossil fuels.”

The U.K. is formally backing the same broad “phaseout of unabated fossil fuels” language that the EU advocates. But its positioning at COP28 was called into question when the head of the country’s delegation, Energy Minister Graham Stuart, suggested to a parliamentary committee that he wasn’t fixated on the precise terminology. 

“Our belief is that we should focus on phasing down, phasing out — whatever it does, as long as it translates into real action — of unabated fossil fuels,” Stuart told MPs less than a month before the summit. 

The U.K. under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to “max out” its domestic North Sea fossil fuel resources — leaving it in a weak position to argue for “phaseout” regardless, said former energy minister Chris Skidmore, a lawmaker from Sunak’s Conservative party.  

“The fate of the world is resting on a distinction between phaseout and phase-down,” Skidmore said. “But the U.K. finds itself now [unable] to argue for phaseout because it’s joined the phase-down club.”

Could we just grab the carbon?

Another wrinkle in the discussions is whether the deal includes the “unabated” caveat. 

Major fossil fuel producers, including the U.S., argue that the continued use of fossil fuels is possible and necessary as long as the carbon pollution is captured — or “abated.” But the term has gained growing attention and criticism because it lacks a precise definition and the carbon capture technology often associated with it remains expensive and largely unproven. Many scientists and vulnerable countries worry it distracts from the actual work of slashing emissions and gives countries cover to keep polluting.

But some officials and negotiators argue that action matters most, not the precise verbiage. Others say that without a timetable, “phaseout” and “phase-down” ultimately amount to the same thing. Officials from some European countries have also indicated they want national climate plans to target every sector of the economy — less sexy than a global deal on fossil fuels perhaps, but more concrete.

Even climate advocates note that nations routinely disregard the nonbinding agreements they make at climate talks. The U.K. expended significant diplomatic effort cementing language calling for a phase-down of coal power when it hosted the 2021 talks in Glasgow, Scotland, said Kaveh Guilanpour, who has led negotiating teams at climate talks from the EU, U.K. and island nations. Weeks later, the U.K. government opened a coal mine. The world this year burned more coal than ever before.

“I worry that a lot of negotiating capital will be used and negotiating time to try to get that signal without looking at the bigger picture of actually how do you operationalize and make something like that accountable,” said Guilanpour, who is now vice president for international strategies at the think tank Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. 

With a consensus to aggressively eliminate fossil fuels increasingly difficult to reach, coalitions on specific aims have proliferated, said Paul Bodnar, a former State Department climate official during the Obama administration. 

Such efforts began with the High Ambition Coalition at the 2015 Paris talks, which called on nations to shoot for 1.5 degrees Celsius ― the target the U.S., UAE and EU all now aim for. Members of that coalition, including France, Denmark, Chile, Kenya and many small islands, are now calling for an unequivocal fossil fuel phaseout.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance is built around getting governments and companies to commit to phasing out coal-fired power on a timeline. It now has 50 country members, including Mexico, Canada and the U.K., which pledged to end coal power by 2025. 

“People are hungering for progress on issues like fossil fuel phaseout, even if it can’t be done in the consensus COP process,” said Bodnar, who is now director of sustainable finance, industry, and diplomacy at the Bezos Earth Fund. “Most of the progress in recent years has been made in coalitions of the willing and there is a risk that the COP becomes a lagging indicator rather than a leading indicator.”

Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman reported from Washington D.C. Zia Weise reported from Dubai. Karl Mathiesen and Charlie Cooper reported from London.