COP29: Nations Struggle With Fossil Fuel Transition Agreement as Saudi Arabia Poses ‘Wrecking Ball’

COP29 talks, including the landmark deal on “transitioning away from fossil fuels” agreed upon at last year’s negotiations, had to be prevented from collapse after Saudi Arabia and other developing countries expressed opposition.

Over the weekend, nations failed to come to an agreement and it was decided that talks would be postponed until next year, reported Climate Home News.

That is, until President of COP29 Mukhtar Babayev announced on Monday that a plenary had been making an effort to restore negotiations, bolstered by the potential for a promising outcome at the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies (G20) in Baku.

“COP29 cannot and will not be silent on mitigation. We will address the matter [in] every direction,” Babayev said, addressing the plenary, as Climate Home News reported.

Governments have been struggling to reaffirm the commitment to make the transition away from fossil fuels in new agreements this year. Notably, the language was absent in a decision on biodiversity made at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, last month. Reports also suggested it was a struggle getting the wording included in the G20 ministerial statement.

Mitigation language, including the essential “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” is currently mentioned in the new draft text of the collective quantified climate finance goal, according to Argus Media.

During the final week of the COP29 climate talks, Saudi Arabian diplomats have been working to stymie agreements that renew the pledge to transition from oil, gas and coal, according to negotiators, as reported by The New York Times.

“Maybe they’ve been emboldened by Trump’s victory, but they are acting with abandon here,” said Alden Meyer, senior associate with London-based climate research organization E3G, who is attending the talks in Azerbaijan. “They’re just being a wrecking ball.”

Negotiators said Saudi Arabia has been working all year to frustrate the agreement made by 200 countries in 2023 to move away from climate warming fossil fuels, even though they signed onto it, five diplomats said anonymously.

Joanna Depledge, a University of Cambridge climate negotiations expert, called the Saudi Arabian government’s opposition to climate action “blatant and brazen.”

“Whereas the U.S. might disagree strongly on something, they are usually well argued with some legal justification,” Depledge said, as The New York Times reported. “But with the Saudis it’s literally a flat ‘no’ with no attempt to really justify or listen, or it uses procedural arguments that waste time.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, climate and energy lead at WWF and former COP president, said energy transition finance will be a major factor in moving mitigation forward, as developing countries push for funding, reported Climate Home News.

“After a faltering first week, Parties now have a second chance to work together and build consensus around the climate solutions we need to reduce emissions quickly. It is essential that this COP sends a strong signal that countries need to raise their game on emission reductions,” Pulgar-Vidal expressed in a statement.