Key countries involved in climate negotiations, due to their international weight, such as Russia, India, China and Saudi Arabia, avoided revealing this Saturday before the COP28 plenary their position on the future of fossil fuels, an issue that is capturing a lot of attention . attention attention climate summit. So while Russia and India avoided talking about fossil fuels in their speeches to present their position in the negotiations, China and Saudi Arabia simply did not intervene.

As for the position of the Asian giant and the world’s largest emitter of emissions, only the words spoken by Cuban Environment Minister Elba Rosa Perez on behalf of the G77+China group of developing countries were heard. .

In her speech before the plenary session of the Dubai Climate Summit (COP28), the Cuban leader called on developed countries to exercise more “ambitious and consistent” leadership because of their historical responsibility for global warming and because they have the resources and technology to reduce emissions. “It is alarming that high levels of emissions remain,” he said of warnings from science that we are falling short of the goals of the Paris Agreement, while criticizing that they have fallen short of their climate finance commitments. .

For his part, India’s Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav limited himself to pointing out that his country has always supported “concrete action at the international level to combat climate change” and assured that they are committed to working for a “greener, cleaner and a healthy planet, since we only have one.”

“Ambitious, consistent and realistic”

Russia’s special envoy to the climate summit, Ruslan Edelgeriev, said his country, the world’s third-largest oil producer, aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060, without elaborating on its position on fossil fuels and maximum greenhouse gas emissions. emitters.

The Russian official said COP28 should present the world with an “ambitious, coherent, realistic and inclusive” vision of the future in the face of the climate crisis. “I talk about inclusivity at the height of hypocrisy when we see some trying to stop our efforts, and I am telling you here: these attempts to undermine our efforts will not work,” Edelgeriev said.

In this context, he asked the COP28 Presidency to lead the negotiations to bring everyone to agreement on “urgent issues” despite differences, and asked all parties to cooperate.