Environment

Activists rally at COP28 to demand end to fossil fuels

Dubai, UAE, Dec 5 (EFE).- Dozens of activists rallied Tuesday outside the venue hosting the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, in one of the few large protests to be held during the first week of the international conference.

While some small gatherings to call for climate action and for a ceasefire in Gaza have taken place this week, “protests and demonstrations are prohibited” in the United Arab Emirates, according to the United States’ Department of State.

Outside the Expo City conference center, activists from across the world called for an immediate end to fossil fuels and for countries that emit the most carbon dioxide to contribute more to curbing harmful emissions.

Protesters called for a “total, fast, fair, funded and feminist phase-out of all fossil fuels” during the rally.

Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, one of the rally’s organizers, said that another COP conference could not “end without concrete steps forward that we stop burning fossil fuels.”

“There is no more time left. No more time for greenwashing – no more time for distractions – no more time for unproven solutions,” CAN said in a post on X (formerly Twitter)

COP28 published a preliminary version of the Global Stocktaking Report (GST) on Tuesday, in which it offers countries different options with which to reinforce climate action and mentions the end of fossil fuels together with other options such as tripling renewable capacity by 2030, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency or ending “inefficient” subsidies for dirty energy.

On the other hand, a report published by the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, which analyzed the provisional list of attendees to COP28, revealed Tuesday that the summit has set a new record for lobbyists for polluting energies, with 2,456 lobbying on behalf of fossil fuel companies.

COP28 has generated great controversy, since its president, Sultan al-Jaber, is also the president of the United Arab Emirates national oil company ADNOC. EFE

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