DUBAI - The deal reached on Dec 13 at the marathon COP28 climate talks in Dubai signals the beginning of the end for fossil fuels and lays the foundation for global action to save the planet from catastrophic climate change.

For the first time, a United Nations climate conference has directly referred to fossil fuels in a decision text, overcoming nearly three decades of resistance by the fossil fuel industry.

Nearly 200 nations supported a transition away from coal, oil and gas, the burning of which is the main source of emissions driving climate change, and the deal calls on nations to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030.

The agreement brokered by the host, the United Arab Emirates, is not perfect but is a much-needed reset of global climate action, which had become bogged down by deep geopolitical rifts in recent years.

To win agreement, the two-week talks went into an extra day of negotiations, leading to the deal called The UAE Consensus that will be crucial in informing the next round of national climate plans, which must be ready by 2025.

Close cooperation between the United States and China was key.

Mr John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, and his Chinese counterpart, Mr Xie Zhenhua, worked closely ahead of, and during, the talks.

Both envoys were also critical to the success of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world’s main climate pact.

“The spirit of multilateralism is palpable,” Mr Kerry told the closing plenary session on Dec 13.

The agreement comes at the end of the hottest year in recorded history, with concerns that 2024 could be even hotter.

The rapid march of climate change and worsening impacts, especially for vulnerable island nations, dominated the mood of the talks.

But it was the call for COP28 to agree to a phase-out of fossil fuels that was the biggest driver for action at the conference, with deep-seated anger directed at the fossil fuel industry for holding back climate action for years and for its plans to ramp up coal, oil and gas production this decade and beyond.

The European Union and scores of other nations, including poorer countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, demanded the talks end with a decision to phase out fossil fuels to try to bring the world back from the brink of a climate crisis.

Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are set to hit another record in 2023, underscoring the urgency to shift away from polluting energy and switch to cheaper renewables.

In the end, the compromise text agreed called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.

This key compromise text was enough for some nations.

“Humanity has done what was long, long, overdue,” Mr Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate chief, told the plenary.

Getting all nations, especially major oil and gas producers such as Saudi Arabia, to back the deal is a major achievement.

For three decades, the fossil fuel industry and oil-producing countries have blocked all references to fossil fuels in the final decision text of the past climate COPs. The 2021 talks in Glasgow managed to agree on a reference to phasing down coal, but not oil and gas.

In the closing days of COP28, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries secretary-general Haitham Al Ghais urged members not to support any language around phasing out fossil fuels. But in the end, the Saudis and other petrostates agreed to the compromise language.

“Let there be no mistake – the end of the fossil fuel era is inevitable and was brought a little closer today,” said Mr Alden Meyer, a senior associate at British think-tank E3G, who has been to every COP since the first in 1995.

But he said resistance from the fossil fuel industry continues and pointed to the multitude of loopholes in the final decision text.

“Much work lies ahead to convert the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, as well as doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements into concrete action in the real world,” Mr Meyer said.

“Action to mobilise the trillions of dollars needed to decarbonise the global economy, while protecting people from climate impacts and addressing mounting loss and damage, is also essential,” he said in a statement.

Finance was another dominating theme at COP28.

Many poorer nations want to green their economies but cannot afford to do so and need financial support from wealthier nations, multilateral development banks, philanthropy and other sources. The final text did not spell out additional financial support.

There are also concerns that the decision text does not give a specific year for peaking global greenhouse gas emissions, which the UN climate science panel says needs to happen by 2025 and then fall sharply by 2030.

And there are references to recognising that “transitional fuels” can play a role in facilitating the energy transition – a clear reference to gas and especially liquefied natural gas.

Russia and other major gas exporters say gas is needed to meet the world’s energy needs, but scientists say it will only accelerate climate change because gas is a large and growing source of emissions.

Not all nations are happy with the deal, but there were also no objections before it was formally adopted.

Some nations spoke out calling for much more ambition.

Representatives from the 39-member Alliance of Small Island States, of which Singapore is a member, said the deal was not all they wanted and that there was a need for stronger language around fossil fuels and phasing out all fossil fuel subsidies, instead of “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

Fossil fuel subsidies totalled an estimated US$7 trillion (S$9.4 trillion) in 2022, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Mr John Silk, Minister of Natural Resources and Commerce of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a low-lying chain of coral atolls in the central Pacific Ocean, said: “I came here to build a canoe together for my country. Instead, we have built a canoe with a weak and leaky hull, full of holes. And so we must sail this canoe. It has a strong sail – the intent to transition away from fossil fuels is progress that we have fought hard for.”

Ultimately, COP28 is a starting point, a hard-won compromise.

“All parties here have something they wanted in the outcome, but yet not enough to save people and the planet,” said Mr Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, a global grouping of civil society.

Mr Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, told the plenary that all governments and businesses need to turn the pledges made at COP28 into real-economy outcomes, without delay.

“COP28 also needed to signal a hard stop to humanity’s core climate problem – fossil fuels and their planet-burning pollution. While we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end.”