UN climate change body mulls new document on fossil fuel by October 2026
But at a press conference here late Saturday night, Lago said there was a lack of in-depth data on fossil fuels and more information on the subject was needed before anything concrete emerged.
Although the fossil fuel roadmap is not on the official agenda of the COP30 Climate Summit here, it started to be talked about by major parties after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva mentioned it in his opening speech.
Asked if any roadmap had been discussed by the parties during the ongoing negotiations, Lago said: “The roadmap does not have to be supporting or supporting. It is a document… COP30 needs to present the roadmap.” he said.
Negotiators from more than 190 countries gathered here for the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP30 summit will take place from 10 to 21 November in Belem, Brazil, in the Amazon region.
Lago said some “very positive comments” were heard during the negotiations and it was decided to work on this in a sense in the coming period. “We also had very clear comments that this is not a negotiated outcome, this is not a documented outcome that needs to be approved or a document that will go into negotiation,” Lago said. “This road map was prepared so that negotiators and delegations knew all the elements that we might bring to the table during this effort.”
Speaking of any documented roadmap, the COP30 president said most parties felt there was insufficient data on the impacts of fossil fuels and the way forward.
“I think one thing is clear: Most of the interventions agree that we have a problem with data. We need more data. So we really want to continue with the Azerbaijani presidency and the Brazilian presidency to have a group of experts to help us have better data,” he added.
Lago stressed that additional data is needed for different parties to agree on, and that this is one of the things the UN Climate Change body will do early next year.
“We will probably hold three meetings to discuss the data, but this meeting will be with the participation of experts. We propose to prepare a report by October 2026. This is about the 1.3 roadmap.”
He was referring to the report on the 1.3T Roadmap from Baku to Belem published by the COP presidency ahead of the annual climate summit.
The ‘Roadmap from Baku to Belem to 1.3 trillion’, published on November 5, is based on the agreement reached at COP29 held in Baku last year; It called on “all actors”, including countries, governments, banks and businesses, to work together to mobilize US$1.3 trillion annually by 2035 under the new global climate finance target to help developing countries cope with the growing impacts of climate change and transition to cleaner economies.
There is currently no single global roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels, only a mix of partial plans.
The biggest agreement in this direction so far is the COP28 agreement, where countries agreed to move away from fossil fuels. However, no clear deadline or binding rule was specified.
Earlier, in his opening remarks to the COP30 summit here on November 10, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell had called on negotiators in Belem to focus on how to achieve what the world has already agreed to: a move away from fossil fuels, a fair and inclusive economic transformation, and stronger action on adaptation and technology.
“We have already agreed to provide at least US$300 billion in climate finance. Now we need to start moving towards US$1.3 trillion,” he said, referring to the ‘Baku to Belem Roadmap’ for increasing support. he said.
Stiell also called for concrete steps to be taken to implement the global goal on adaptation, implement the technology program and link negotiations to real-world results.
At the press conference, Lago said that the parties had a very interesting ministerial meeting on financial issues regarding the US$ 1.3 trillion ‘Roadmap from Baku to Belem’.
“This was a very constructive discussion, with numerous interventions from delegations and observers. Over the last two days, we asked the parties to share their vision on three issues, the first of which was a unified celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement.” he added.
Lago emphasized that the other two issues – from negotiation to implementation of the Paris Agreement policy cycle – are fully in motion and respond to the urgency of accelerating implementation, solidarity and international cooperation.
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900 baseline).
The world has already warmed by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
In the UN Emission Gap report published at the beginning of the month, it was stated that the world is on track to warm 2.8 degrees by 2100 under current policies.
