{"id":49825,"date":"2024-01-10T13:59:45","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T13:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=49825"},"modified":"2024-01-10T13:59:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T13:59:45","slug":"a-la-carte-menu-saudi-minister-claims-cop28-fossil-fuel-agreement-is-only-optional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2024\/01\/10\/a-la-carte-menu-saudi-minister-claims-cop28-fossil-fuel-agreement-is-only-optional\/","title":{"rendered":"“A la carte menu”: Saudi minister claims Cop28 fossil fuel agreement is only optional"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister has claimed that the headline Cop28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels is just one of several “choices” on an “a la carte menu”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After two weeks in Dubai, all governments agreed<\/a> to “call on” each other “to contribute” to eight “global efforts” – one of which was “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”.<\/p>\n

But at a forum in Riyadh, gesturing on stage to an image displaying the relevant text, long-time minister Abdulaziz bin Salman claimed that “all of these eight items you have in front of you are choices – that’s why I call it a la carte”.<\/p>\n

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A screenshot from Bin Salman’s presentation<\/p><\/div>\n

To justify this interpretation, he pointed to phrases in the introduction to this section like “nationally determined” and “taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances”.<\/p>\n

Bin Salman stressed the difference between “transitioning away from” and “phasing out” fossil fuels – a phrase that was in an early draft<\/a> at Cop28 and a coalition of mainly developed and vulnerable nations had pushed for.<\/p>\n

If they were the same, he said, “we could have used the same word interchangeably but there is a difference here which is…there are people that are transitioning because they want to change their energy mix like us and there are those who believe that they should transition away because they don’t want to use fossil fuels”.<\/p>\n