Fractious UN climate talks end with no direct push on fossil fuels in deal

UN climate talks in Brazil are wrapping up Saturday with a push to help move nations away from fossil fuels, but the deal lacks explicit mention of the CO2-spewing energy sources.Why it matters: The compromise underscores the Paris Agreement's limited ability to move from aspiration to stronger real-world action.It's a disappointment for nations and advocates that want an explicit "roadmap" away from fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas.But it prevented collapse of the talks that had already extended beyond Friday's scheduled close.Driving the news: One main agreement in Belém launches a "Global Implementation Accelerator" to speed up efforts to limit temperature rise.It also has a "Belém Mission to 1.5" aimed at "enabling ambition and implementation" of nations' emissions-cutting pledges.Elsewhere, the agreement calls for efforts to at least triple finance for climate adaptation by 2035.Between the lines: The carefully word-smithed document indirectly endorses movement away from fossil fuels.The section on the "Global Implementation Accelerator" shouts out the "United Arab Emirates Consensus."That's the outcome of the 2023 UN talks in Dubai that called for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems."Including an explicit push away from fossil fuels in this year's agreement hit "stiff resistance from the Arab Group of nations including top oil exporter Saudi Arabia," Reuters reports from Brazil.The big picture: The talks unfolded as low-carbon power and vehicle deployment is growing worldwide, but global CO2 emissions are still rising as energy consumption grows.Multiple studies say warming is slated to blow harmfully far past Paris Agreement goals without much stronger action.That most aggressive Paris target — limiting rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels — won't be met, these outlooks find. The 2015 agreement's fallback goal is holding the rise to well below 2°C.The International Energy Agency's recent World Energy Outlook, for instance, projects an increase of roughly 2.5 °C by 2100 under nations existing and planned policies. Catch up quick: The Trump administration, which is again withdrawing from Paris, didn't participate.But Trump officials have battled multilateral climate work in other forum, notably threatening to retaliate against nations that endorsed new emissions fees on shipping.That led to collapse of recent UN International Maritime Organization talks to agree on that system.Friction point: Another section warns nations that their climate policies "should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade."That phrasing is veiled pushback against the EU's planned border fees on carbon-intensive goods from other countries," Bloomberg reports.What they're saying: Michael Jacobs, a senior fellow at the think tank ODI Global, said there was "implacable opposition" in Belém from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to fossil fuel transition language.This reveals "an increasingly bitter conflict at the heart of global climate politics."It's "between those who accept the science and recognise that the world must wean itself off fossil fuels over the next two or three decades; and those who are actively resisting this in order to produce even more of them," said Jacobs, also a political economy professor at the University of Sheffield, said in a statement.Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, said: "With an increasingly fractured geopolitical backdrop, COP30 gave us some baby steps in the right direction, but considering the scale of the climate crisis, it has failed to rise to the occasion."Yes, but: "COP30 delivered breakthroughs to triple adaptation finance, protect the world's forests and elevate the voices of Indigenous people like never before," World Resources Institute President and CEO Ani Dasgupta said in a statement."This shows that even against a challenging geopolitical backdrop, international climate cooperation can still deliver results."What we're watching: Efforts outside of the consensus agreement.At Saturday's closing plenary, André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian president of the talks, said he would create two roadmaps — one on halting and reversing deforestation, and the other on fossil fuel transition.He said the work would convene other governments, NGOs, industry workers and other parties.

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