US climate envoy Kerry hails the UAE’s decision to host the COP28 conference in 2023

US climate envoy Kerry hails the UAE’s decision to host the COP28 conference in 2023

At the COP27, he cheered the announcement of 30 upgraded national climate plans along with the summit’s headline agreement on 'loss and damage'

By Reuters Published: Thu 8 Dec 2022, 9:36 AM

On Wednesday, US Special Climate Envoy John Kerry hailed the decision to hold next year’s COP28 climate summit the United Arab Emirates (an Opec member), saying that fossil fuel economies should be encouraged to lead the transition to clean energy.

The next United Nations climate conference will be held in late November, raising worries among some climate activists that this could hinder progress on moving the world away from reliance on fossil fuels.

"I think it's very exciting that the UAE is going to host COP and it's so important that you have an oil and gas producing nation step up and say we understand the challenge of the climate crisis,” Kerry told Reuters in an interview.

"They're very smart because they know that what's coming out of the ground is not forever — either physically or politically — and they're looking at what the new world is going to look like. If there are going to be new forms of energy they want to be among the providers of it, just as