“After days of back-and-forth negotiations at COP28 UAE, our world has come together to move away from fossil fuels. The “UAE Consensus” has agreed to call on countries to phase out fossil fuels, a milestone in a marathon-like journey from the first COP in Berlin in 1995. However, at a time when we need to speed things up, the race to reduce greenhouse gases and create a world that is free of the use of fossil fuels has postponed the much-needed finishing sprint. The Alliance of Small Island States released a statement raising concerns that major concessions could block the urgent action needed. It said there appears to be a “litany of loopholes in the text” of the revised Global Stocktake.

Beyond the rhetoric, the commitments to achieving fossil fuel phase-out are missing. The text compromises the world’s poorest and developing nations’ right to development. How the majorities of the world, still compelled to struggle for survival in deprived conditions, will reach better futures is missing. The consensus document sidesteps the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and the accountability and financing for addressing the guilt of past and current emissions by developed countries.

The financial commitments listed in the text are totally inadequate for the task ahead, and words allow too much leeway for greenwashing and false solutions.

For too long, we have left it to the Global North to come up with solutions. We need a shining star from the Global South to counter the dangerous distractions of the Global North and move us to just, equitable, sustainable, people-centric and community-led climate solutions.

We need more pressure from vulnerable communities of the Global South through their social movements, their organisations and their governments to counter both the interests of the powerful nations of the developed countries and the pressures of multinational corporate interests that depend on over-extractive, over-polluting and over-exploiting industrial processes. We need popular pressure to ensure profits do not triumph over people and the planet.”