World not ready yet to ‘switch off’ fossil fuels, COP28 host UAE says

World not ready yet to ‘switch off’ fossil fuels, COP28 host UAE says

WASHINGTON - The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday that countries should agree to phase out fuel emissions - not the production of oil, gas and coal - at the upcoming U.N. climate change negotiations that it will host this December.

The comments reflect deep divisions between nations over how to combat global warming ahead of the COP28 talks. Some wealthy Western governments and climate-afflicted island nations have been pushing for a phase out of fossil fuels, while resource-rich countries have campaigned to keep drilling.

UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment Mariam Almheiri told Reuters in an interview that phasing out fossil fuels would hurt countries that depend on them for revenue or can not easily replace them with renewable sources.

She favored phasing out fossil fuel emissions using capture and storage technologies while ramping up renewable energy, saying this strategy lets countries fight warming while continuing to produce oil, gas, and coal.

"The renewable space is advancing and accelerating extremely fast but we are nowhere near to be able to say that we can switch off fossil fuels and solely depend on clean and renewable energy," Almheiri said on the sidelines of the Agriculture Innovation Mission (AIM) for Climate conference in Washington.

"We