About 10 of the EU’s 27 member states, including Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia, want the bloc to demand a phaseout of all fossil fuels, EU diplomats told Reuters.
“If you listen to all the scientists it is clear that we need to phase out all fossil fuels,” said Dutch Climate Minister Rob Jetten, who called on the European Union, “the most ambitious bloc” on the issue, at COP28. Was requested to be.
A similar number of countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, are more cautious.
They only want to phase out “unsustainable” fossil fuels – leaving a window for countries to continue burning coal, gas and oil if they use the technology to “reduce” – meaning Is – capturing the resulting emissions.
Malta’s Environment Minister Miriam Dalli said the aim was to “keep this option open for sectors that are difficult to decarbonise”, which could include CO2-intensive industries such as chemicals and cement that do not have the means to curb emissions. There are limited options.