Brazilian Minister Calls for Boldness to Develop Fossil Energy Phase-out Roadmap at UN Climate Summit

The environment minister, Marina Silva, has urged all nations to demonstrate the bravery needed to confront the imperative of a global fossil fuel phaseout, describing the creation of a roadmap as an “ethical” answer to the climate crisis.

The minister emphasized, however, that involvement in this endeavor would be optional and “self-determined” for willing nations.

This issue stands as one of the most contentious subjects at the UN climate summit in Brazil, with nations divided over if and how such a strategy can be discussed. As the host, the nation has maintained a carefully neutral position on which items can be included on the formal agenda.

The official voiced approval for the potential of a roadmap, without explicitly committing the country to it. She stated: “When we have a terrain that is very challenging, it is good that we have a guide. But the map does not compel us to travel, or to advance.”

In an interview, she noted: “The roadmap is an response to our scientific understanding [of the climate crisis]. It is an moral answer.”

Dozens of countries meeting in Belém for the UN climate summit, which is entering its second week, are seeking to establish how a worldwide transition of fossil fuels could be implemented. They aim to advance a historic agreement reached two years ago at a previous UN summit to “move away from non-renewable energy sources.”

The pledge had no a schedule or details on how it could be achieved, and although it was passed unanimously, some countries have later tried to disavow the pledge. Efforts last year to elaborate on its real-world meaning were blocked by resistance from oil-dependent nations at COP29.

Consequently, there was no reference of the shift away from fossil fuels in the outcome of COP29.

For these reasons, Brazil has been cautious of demands by some nations to place the transition on the agenda for COP30. But the minister has worked hard behind the scenes to ensure the pledge could be talked about at the conference apart from the official program.

The minister won over the nation's leader, and he made mention repeatedly to the need to “move away from dependence on traditional energy” at the global leaders' meeting that came before the conference, and at the opening of the event.

“This is a matter that we know at a certain time had to be raised, because it is the only way to address the issue from the root,” the minister said. “We recognise that it is challenging, and we must not sell false hopes. Raising the subject is brave, and I wish [to see] this bravery from everyone, from producers and using countries.”

The nation had not started the call for a transition, she clarified, because that had been initiated at COP28. Instead, it was allowing the talks to take place in line with what certain countries wished. “We know these subjects are sensitive. We will provide the chance to talk about it,” she added.

Time is insufficient at the summit to draw up a roadmap, a process the minister called could take several years because numerous nations faced complex challenges around dependence on carbon-based energy, or aimed to use the proceeds from selling fossil fuels to fund their economic growth.

“The country raises the subject, because it is both a producing nation and consumer,” she noted. “But the nation is different, because it, if it wants to, need not depend on fossil fuels. We have to recognise that there are some that depend on carbon energy in their economies and lack easy solutions, and some where fossil fuels are the basis of their economic structure.

“To be just is to be just to everyone, but the fundamental, primordial justice is to avoid being unjust to the Earth, because it is our home.”

Should the proposal receives sufficient support, COP30 could set up a platform in which the work of drawing up a strategy to the phaseout could begin.

The process would require dialogue with every participating countries to the UN framework convention on climate change and criteria for how the process would unfold, Silva explained. “Once we have standards, a management framework can be developed; once we have a plan, and establish protections to be able to establish trust in the system, I believe that with these elements we can transform good ideas into steps that are clearer, and more concrete.”

It is uncertain that a suggestion to begin drawing up a roadmap would be accepted at COP30, even if it may not need the official approval of the conference, which operates by unanimous agreement and can be disrupted by particular groups. COP analysts have indicated they believe there could be support for such a idea from about 60 nations, but there are thought to be at least 40 against. A total of 195 countries participating at the negotiations.

“In spite of being the primary source of climate change, carbon-based energy are about the most contentious topic there is within the UN negotiations, so to see a sizable coalition of nations openly backing a path to realizing global phaseout is in itself highly significant.”

“In simple terms, there’s no path to a planet where warming remains below 1.5C in which nations aren’t able to talk about fossil fuel phaseout.”

“We require this wording for actual in this conversation. It’s quite stupid that we discuss all topics but that when the main issue are the actual problem.”

Discussions carried on on the weekend on several unresolved issues that have not yet been incorporated into the formal schedule: commerce, transparency, funding and how to tackle the gap between the carbon reduction countries have proposed and those required to keep to the 1.5-degree temperature limit.

The COP30 chair pledged a “document” that would cover these issues, after consultations – which have been going on since Monday – were unresolved. The official called on countries to embrace the “mutirão” attitude, meaning one of collaboration and constructive dialogue.

Progress on other substantive topics – including adjustment to the effects of the climate emergency, the fair shift for those affected by the transition to a low-carbon economic system and how to build institutional capacity in developing countries – carried on constructively, the presidency said.

The host nation's lead representative said the detailed part of the COP proceedings was nearing completion, and the political phase – when government leaders who have the power to change their nations' stances join – was beginning.