The world will soon be transitioning from oil, coal and gas – that’s the consensus reached at an influential gathering of international leaders at the annual United Nations climate change meeting.
The agreement makes a historic acknowledgment: The world will soon be radically changing how cars run, how electricity is generated and how goods are transported.
“The world has spoken with one voice and the message is clear: It’s twilight for the fossil fuel era,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a written statement.
The U.N. says the deal marks a historic global first – a plan to create a road map to move away from fossil fuels. But it stopped short of what some climate activists wanted: a “call for a ‘phaseout’ of oil, coal and gas.”
What is COP28, this international gathering?
Tuesday was the official end of COP28, the annual meeting of about 200 parties that have agreed to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, first adopted in 1992. The nearly two-week meeting came at what scientists say is a critical moment in the fight to keep the already dangerous effects of climate change from tipping into a catastrophe.
Negotiations to hammer out the final deal continued overnight into Wednesday, U.N. officials said.
Did anything else noteworthy happen at COP28?
The commitment to transition from fossil fuels wasn’t the only major news to come out of this year’s gathering. Nations also agreed to stick to a crucial climate goal:…
