EU to phase out fossil fuels

Press Release from Council approves conclusions bolstering climate and energy diplomacy in a critical decade - Consilium (europa.eu)

EU climate and energy diplomacy is a core component of EU’s foreign policy and stressing the EU determination to engage and work with partners worldwide to implement the Paris Agreement, limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels, support the most vulnerable countries in adapting to climate change effects, and increase collective climate finance.

The conclusions also reaffirm the engagement of EU’s external energy policy to support, intensify and accelerate the ongoing global energy transition as a crucial element towards achieving climate neutrality so that it is inclusive, just and ensures energy security and universal access to safe, sustainable and affordable energy.

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine has precipitated an energy security and food crisis with global impacts.

Their aim is to guide joint EU diplomatic outreach in 2023, a particularly important year featuring the Climate Ambition Summit and the political phase of the ‘Global Stocktake’ at the UNFCCC COP28 in the United Arab Emirates

From the EU Council Conclusion:

EU energy diplomacy will promote the global phase-out of environmentally harmful fossil fuel subsidies, which are not contributing to a just transition towards climate neutral energy systems. The Council welcomes the progress made in the World Trade Organisation’s  initiative on fossil fuel subsidy reforms. 

The Council considers that a dependence on fossil fuels leaves countries vulnerable to market volatility and geopolitical risk and that the shift towards a climate neutral economy will require the global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, as defined by the IPCC, and a peak in their consumption already in the near term, while recognising a transitional role for natural gas. The EU will systematically promote and call for a global move towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels well ahead of 2050. In this regard, the Council recalls the commitment taken at COP 26 to close the book on unabated coal power through a phase down, and, calls for a resolute and just world-wide transformation towards climate neutrality, including a phasing out of unabated coal in energy production and – as a first step – an immediate end to all financing of new coal infrastructure in third countries.