Guilbeault hails 'monumental' COP28 deal, others warn of 'dangerous distractions'

OTTAWA -

Canada's environment minister hailed a "monumental" deal on Wednesday to close out COP28, the first time the United Nations climate summit of nearly 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels.

The agreement approved in Dubai was welcomed by some observers as a historic turning point in global climate negotiations and stronger than a draft floated earlier in the week.

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But many warned of what they saw as loopholes and distractions included in the agreement that could undermine the action needed to meet the global commitment to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times.

Minister Steven Guilbeault said Canada played a "leading role in solidifying the deal."

"The deal sets the tone for the next few years as we continue our efforts in tackling the climate crisis," he wrote in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. "This outcome is monumental."

Within minutes of opening Wednesday's session in Dubai, COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber gavelled in approval of the central document -- an evaluation of how off-track the world is on climate and how to get back on -- without giving critics a chance to comment. He hailed it as a "historic package to accelerate climate action."

The agreement calls on countries to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, "accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050."

Liz McDowell, Vancouver-based senior campaigns director with the environmental group Stand.earth, warned the deal is weakened by "dangerous distractions," such as leaving the door open to so-called transitional fuels like natural gas, and failed to commit wealthy countries to finance the energy transition.

"Back home, we're determined to hold the Canadian government accountable to commitments they made here in Dubai to transition our economy away from fossil fuels," McDowell said in a statement.

The federal government made several announcements during the two-week summit, unveiling its emissions cap for the oil and gas industry and draft regulations to drastically cut methane emissions from the sector.

Wednesday's deal at COP28 went further than a draft agreement that caused an uproar earlier in the week. That draft prepared by the COP presidency made no mention of a fossil fuel phase down or phase out, instead calling for countries to reduce "consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."

Catherine Abreu, a leading voice in Canadian climate policy circles, said the agreement marked "an extraordinary turning point" for negotiations that had for 30 years focused on emissions but not their cause. Two years ago, the draft agreement coming out of the summit in Scotland was the first to mention fossil fuel use at all, though limited it to coal.

"We will ensure that those countries like Canada most responsible for the climate crisis, that have benefited most from wrecking our atmosphere with fossil fuel production, pay up for the energy transition," Abreu, executive director of Destination Zero, a non-profit working on climate justice and renewable energy transitions, wrote in a statement.

The document agreed to on Wednesday is a central part of the 2015 Paris accord, which mandated countries to periodically assess their commitments to limit warming to the 1.5-degree threshold.

The countries recognized that meeting that target required "deep, rapid and sustained" global emissions reductions of 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035 relative to 2019 levels.

To help achieve that, the agreement calls for a tripling of renewable energy capacity and a doubling of the annual rate of energy efficiency by 2030.

- with files from the Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2023.