BELÉM, Brazil — Dozens of governments on Tuesday urged countries to agree on a “roadmap” for phasing out coal, oil and natural gas, ratcheting up the stakes for United Nations climate change negotiations that end this week.
The call from 82 countries spanning Europe, the Pacific islands, Latin America and Africa immediately elevated the topic to the top of the COP30 agenda, making it one of the most substantial and likely divisive topics of the two-week negotiations.
One name absent from the list is the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer, which is skipping the talks entirely.
Even so, “this is a coalition of Global North and Global South … saying with one voice that this is an issue that cannot be ignored,” U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said at a press conference.
