The head of the United Nations' climate body called on Monday for an end to obstruction a day before a deadline for a deal at the Dubai climate summit, where oil producers are resisting demands to phase out historic calls for the world to phase out fossil fuel consumption.
With barely 24 hours before COP28 officially closes in Dubai, negotiators have spent a sleepless night trying to come up with an agreement that can be agreed upon by all nearly 200 countries.
Spurred on by pleas from small island states that fear for their existence, the conference in the metropolis built with oil money is considering first ending the use of oil, gas and coal, which are the main culprits of the climate crisis on the planet.
"We don't have a minute to waste," Simon Stiel, head of the UN climate body, told reporters.
Without naming the countries, Stiel called for the removal of "unnecessary tactical roadblocks" preventing a deal.
He called on countries to maintain the "highest ambition" to limit global warming to no more than 1,5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels - an increasingly elusive goal endorsed by the 2015 Paris Agreement to avoid the worst ravages of climate change, including worsening storms and droughts and sea level rise.
Stiel said disagreements at the summit narrowed down to two issues - fossil fuels and accelerating climate finance from rich countries to the hardest-hit developing countries.
Summit leaders are expected to release a new draft text on Monday.
The annual conference of the parties, or COP, has rarely ended on schedule in its 28-year history, but COP28 chairman Sultan Al Jaber urged countries to wrap things up on time on Tuesday.
Jaber, the head of the national oil company of the United Arab Emirates, repeatedly promised that a historic deal would be reached at the summit and called on countries to find a "consensus and a common language" on fossil fuels.
"Failure is not an option," he said on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has opposed any phase-out of fossil fuels and said at COP28 that its "perspectives and concerns" must be taken into account.
Iraq has also publicly rejected abandoning fossil fuels.
Veteran climate campaigners and negotiators say, however, that the world has never been so close to agreeing to phase out the use of oil, gas and coal.
The pressure is now on Jabera - whose role as oil chief has caused consternation among climate campaigners - to make final changes to the deal that would bring about consensus.
The latest draft of the deal released Friday includes four different paths to divest from fossil fuels, but has a fifth option: leave the issue out of the final deal.
China, the world's largest emitter, was also initially seen as hostile to the phase-out, but has worked to find a compromise.
China and the US, the biggest emitters, agreed last month ahead of COP28 in California to accelerate the use of renewable energy to gradually replace oil, gas and coal.
Friday's draft agreement includes similar wording on the need to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to "replace fossil fuel-based energy."
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