An overview of the opening ceremony of COP28 in Dubai, UAE, on November 30, 2023. (Photo: Xinhua/VNA)

Addressing a press conference, COP28 Director-General Majid Al Suwaidi said all participants wanted to complete the conference as scheduled, but not without achieving an ambitious result on the fossil fuel issue.

A proposal to phase out the use of fossil fuels was included in the first draft of the agreement, but a newer draft proposed by COP28 President Al Jaber replaced ‘phasing out’ with ‘reducing’ the production and use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, coal, to achieve the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the draft was "clearly insufficient and not adequate to address the problem of climate change”.

Echoing Wopke’s opinion, representatives of many countries and organizations said they were disappointed that the new draft agreement did not mention the phase-out of the use of fossil fuels.

80 countries demanded an agreement to end the use of fossil fuels, but other countries, mainly the group of oil exporting countries (OPEC+) and their allies, opposed any commitment to phase out fossil fuels in the COP28 agreement.