'Devastating': scientists respond to Cop28 failure on fossil fuel phase-out

The failure of Cop28 to call for a phase-out of fossil fuels is “devastating” and “dangerous” given the urgent need for action to tackle the climate crisis, scientists have said.

- Damian Carrington

One called it a “tragedy for the planet and our future” while another said it was the “dream outcome” for the fossil fuel industry.

The UN climate summit ended on Wednesday with a compromise deal that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels. The stronger term “phase-out” had been backed by 130 of the 198 countries negotiating in Dubai but was blocked by petrostates including Saudi Arabia.

The deal was hailed as historic as it was the first citing of fossil fuels, the root cause of the climate crisis, in 30 years of negotiations. But scientists said the agreement contained many loopholes and did not match the severity of the climate emergency.

“The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating,” said Prof Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania in the US. “To ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was weak tea at best. It’s like promising your doctor that you will ‘transition away from doughnuts’ after being diagnosed with diabetes.”

Dr Magdalena Skipper, the editor-in-chief of the science journal Nature, said: “The science is clear – fossil fuels must go. World leaders will fail their people and the planet unless they accept this reality.”