Landmark deal at COP28 begins a qualified end to the fossil fuel era

James Dinneen in New Scientist:

At 11am local time on 13 December, countries adopted the text of an agreement that calls 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.”

“Thirty years we’ve spent to arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels,” Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, told a plenary of countries at the summit.

The agreement, known as the Global Stocktake, also calls for nations to take a series of steps to decarbonise their energy systems, including tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030.

More here.