Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: EUROPEAN UNION / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 16:11 p.m., December 09, 2023

China's climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, has reported "progress" in the complex COP28 negotiations on fossil fuels, with three days to go. "We all want to work together to find a formula that gives the right direction for the efforts to be made," he told reporters, adding that COP28 would be a failure without a "resolution" on the issue of fossil fuels.

With three days to go before the end of COP28, China said on Saturday that negotiations on the exit from oil, gas and coal are progressing, as OPEC tries to curb the momentum against fossil fuels. "We've already made progress on this, and I think we'll have more very soon, in the next few days," said China's climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, a veteran of the negotiations who was at COP21 when the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. "Because if we don't get there, if we don't solve this issue, I don't see much chance that we will have a successful COP28," he added in a meeting with reporters.

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The great diplomatic puzzle being assembled in Dubai under the presidency of the United Arab Emirates must both send the signal that the beginning of the end of fossil fuels has begun, according to the wish of a hundred countries, including those of the European Union, and that the energy transition must not be synonymous with sacrifice for developing countries. China, committed to the Paris Agreement, is seen as a bridge between rich and developing countries, and its envoy is at all meetings.

On Saturday, Xie Zhenhua was careful to point out that China and the United States had signed a joint declaration in November to say that renewable energies (solar, wind, etc.) should gradually replace fossil fuels. Will this be the basis for a compromise at COP28? Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the conference, wants a "deal" by Tuesday, the 8th anniversary of the Paris agreement.

'Angry' at OPEC

The diplomatic game over the next three days will be to find the balance that can win the consensus of 194 countries and the European Union. "The challenge is to find formulations that take into account the very wide diversity of starting points of each country and the way in which they imagine moving towards carbon neutrality, while trying to maintain a high level of ambition," explains the French Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher. "We're going to have to be a little inventive with the language."

So close to the goal, the major camps are repeating their positions, and the ire of the anti-fossil fuel countries is aimed at OPEC, the Saudi-led cartel of oil-exporting countries. The Kuwaiti secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Haitham al-Ghais, defended his opposition to any specific targeting of fossil fuels in a final agreement on Saturday. "There is no single solution or pathway to achieve a sustainable energy future," he said.

It wrote this week "urgently" to its 23 member or associate countries urging them to "proactively reject" any agreement targeting fossil fuels. The intervention provoked a deluge of reactions in Dubai, among NGOs but also among ministers. Spain's Minister for Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, whose country holds the six-month presidency of the European Union, has caused a stir by denouncing a "repugnant" position. Agnès Pannier-Runacher said she was "stunned" and "angry".

"Nothing endangers the prosperity and future of the people of the Earth, including the citizens of OPEC countries, more than fossil fuels," said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, a Pacific archipelago threatened by rising sea levels. But "no country wants to be the country designated as the troublemaker," said a member of the COP28 presidency team, who sees the Saudi manoeuvres as a typical technique for the purposes of negotiations.

"Leading by example"

At the podium, the countries followed one another on Saturday without showing any significant change in their public positions. The representative of Qatar even took the opportunity to praise natural gas, of which his country is a major producer. "Qatar is supplying the world's markets with clean energy through the production of natural gas," Qatar's environment minister, Faleh Nasser Al-Thani, said bluntly.

Emerging and developing countries, on the other hand, are demanding quid pro quo from rich countries to sign the abandonment of fossil fuels. The terms "fairness" and "fair" are in every speech. Speaking on Saturday, India's climate minister, Bhupender Yadav, called on developed countries to "lead by example".